


Every Road Leads Back to My Door

by InFlagranteDestiel



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - High School, Complete, F/M, Friendship, Long, M/M, Wordcount: 50.000-100.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-27
Updated: 2014-06-20
Packaged: 2018-01-26 19:43:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 14
Words: 55,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1700249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InFlagranteDestiel/pseuds/InFlagranteDestiel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The summer after Dean's junior year, he befriends Castiel, the school's biggest and most mysterious outcast. Through a summer of growing up, self-discovery, and a series of strange dreams, Dean is living in a constantly-shifting world. He learns that the life he has led previously isn't always the life he will lead -- or could be leading. There is only one constant, through joy and tragedy, and it isn't who he expected it to be -- just as he himself isn't who he expected to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Dean/Cas is the main relationship in this story, but it is not explicitly sexual. However, it's not exclusively friends-only, either. Dean has sex with a girl, though that isn't described in detail. Not to tell you how the sausage is made, here, but I wanted to dig deep into the relationship and explore how they act and react toward each other, as opposed to going straight for the sex. 
> 
> Also, about the character deaths: They are two deaths toward the very end of characters that are already dead in canon. (I know, really narrows it down.) Dean and Cas and most of the other characters survive. 
> 
> Tl; dr: Dean/Cas friendship with romantic rainbow sprinkles, no butt stuff, canon character deaths.

He had that dream again, that one with Sam and the barn and the graffiti. He had this dream a lot, and others like it, almost always involving Sam. Sometimes they were driving, endlessly, never reaching any final destination. Sometimes they were in crumbling old houses, wood soft and splintering, spongy under their hard work boots. What work they did was never clear. 

But the barn dream. Freaky symbols everywhere, thunder and lightning outside, the very bones and sinews of the building threatening to blow apart and leave them exposed. The dream usually ended there. But this time, there was someone else. Castiel, that weird little dude from English class. 

The doors flung open on their own and there was Castiel, out of nowhere – you know how dreams are – striding to the front of the barn, ready to say something. He looked like all the elements and all the seasons, wrapped in that compact body, like a burrito stuffed too full. It gave him this crazy look like it might all crack apart at any moment. 

Then Dean woke up, groaning against the coming day. He was only in high school and already getting up seemed to be such an imposition. What would it be like when he was old? 

Sunlight streamed through the break in his curtains. What a dickhead the sun was. Oh well. At least blazing sunlight at seven in the morning meant summer was close at hand. His junior year would be done, and Dad was going to let him tinker around in the shop. He would be doing bitch work, sweeping up and doing oil changes and all the shit no one else wanted to do, but he’d be getting paid for it. Better than that, Mom wouldn’t be breathing down his neck all the damn time about _why don’t you have any friends?_ and _take your brother, wherever you’re going, which I don’t want to know about just be home in time for dinner and don’t call me from jail._

Always, always with the jail thing, and Sheriff Mills had basically said she only put Dean there to scare him. It was only the one time.

He got ready for school and couldn’t for the life of him shake the dream from his mind. It clung in the cobwebby recesses there, somewhere between trying to remember which nurse that Dr. Sexy slept with in the first season and figuring out how to ask Dad if he could drive the Impala sometime. The thing was, Castiel was so quiet in class. Like, kind of freaky quiet. People talked. It didn’t help matters that the kid up and left that winter and was gone for, like, three solid months. He’d only gotten back a few weeks before. People talked more. They said he ran away to the city to be a male prostitute or that he got put into some kind of home for crazy kids who never talked and didn’t have any friends. Dean was glad he had that gift of gab, because he sure as shit didn’t have any friends to speak of but he could at least spin an entertaining yarn in class. If it weren’t for that, he’d likely be as suspect as poor Castiel, the lone freshman in a class full of juniors. They weren’t smart juniors, to be sure, but still. 

“Sammy, come on, man!” he called down the hall, thumping once on his brother’s bedroom door as he passed it. 

Sam came out of his room with his gangly arms poking through the armholes of his t-shirt, his head still searching for the right place to poke through. 

“Why are you so fucking chipper?” 

“Samuel Winchester, watch your language,” Mom called up the stairs. “Your brother’s right. Get a move on.” 

“Can you please say that again more slowly?” Dean said, rushing down the stairs, pretending to fire up a tape recorder. “And speak directly into the mic.” 

She swatted him with a dishtowel as she turned back to the kitchen, trying and failing to hide a smile. “Come on. Toast and eggs.” 

She leaned against the counter drinking coffee while he and Sam destroyed plates of toast and eggs. He always felt vaguely sorry for vegans, but never more than when he was mopping up egg yolk with squishy white bread. He marveled at how his mom could get his egg yolks so perfect. There was that fine line between runny and gooey, and he liked them gooey. He’d seen her zip across the kitchen at the last minute to take them off the burner, some kind of sense that he didn’t have, letting her know the eggs were done.

“You two eat like horses,” she said, shaking her head. 

Dean grabbed an extra piece of toast and smeared it with butter before jumping up to kiss her on the cheek and get his bag from the hall. 

Sam was struggling with his jacket and Dean was out the door. He ran his hand along the side of the Impala on his way out. She was under the cover that Dad put over her to protect her from the elements, but the solid weight under his hand let him know she was still there. He and Dad had fixed up an old Dodge Dart, which was a decent enough car and not too much of an embarrassment to drive, but it was no Impala. 

Sam had won the battle with his coat, getting in the passenger side of the Dart. Someday this would be his domain, and Dean had to confess, he wasn’t too sad about it. There was something about that car that just suited Sam. Maybe because it was so small. 

Sam fiddled with the radio and Dean swatted his hand away. There would be Styx before school or there would be nothing. Sam should know better than to mess with Dean’s capricious musical tendencies. Regardless of if it was Styx or Toto, there were two rules: 

1\. Driver picks the music.  
1a. Passenger shuts his cake hole.  
2\. Dean was never going to pick the bleeding vagina music that Sam liked, so get over it and get used to it. 

***

Dean had had Mr. Alistair’s class the year before, when he was a sophomore and when the class was world history instead of American history. In world history, Mr. Alistair had spent an entire week talking about the Spanish Inquisition, two days on Vlad the Impaler and Josef Stalin (not all at once), and two whole weeks talking about Nazi atrocities during World War II. This year, he had been recounting the Trail of Tears and the treatment of slaves in the antebellum South with such a twinkle in his eyes that it was starting to get embarrassing. Dean sat in the back and chewed the cap of his pen nearly flat. 

“They might have traipsed right through these very grounds,” he said, looking out the window, presumably meaning a tearful trail of Native Americans, his eyes fixed on some point in the past that Dean felt blessed he couldn’t see. That guy had gone a bridge too far and kept paddling. 

Mr. Alistair was tall and lanky with a face like a misshapen potato and a sunken-in mouth. He moved and talked like the world was made of Jell-O. 

The bell rang, proof that at least somewhere on this shit-covered rock there was goodness and decency, and Dean raced out, getting as close as he could to pushing kids out of the way without inciting a fight or getting a reprimand, when he felt Mr. Alistair’s cold bony fingers on his arm. A shiver ran up his spine, and he straightened. 

“Hold on a second, Dean,” he said. He had this weird, raspy voice, like it was buried in his chest under some gnarly rock and had to work hard to get out. It was rumbly and whining all at once. 

“Yeah?” 

“What do we have to do to get you a little more engaged in this class?” 

Dean bit back a retort about booze and pictures of tits from the Renaissance, settling for shrugging instead. 

Mr. Alistair chuckled and it sounded like bullet casings dropping on a stone floor. “My history teacher asked me the same thing once.” 

“What did you tell him?” 

“For the life of me, I can’t remember,” Mr. Alistair said. “Try to pay attention in my class, Dean. The final is rapidly approaching.”

Considering that the guy seemed to be an expert on torture, Dean figured he could at least put in the effort. He nodded, mumbled an incoherent affirmative, and skittered out as fast as he could. 

That guy gave him the uh-oh feeling, as the nice police officer who had come to the elementary school way back in the day had called it during an assembly on stranger danger. The man was sure to have at least five hookers buried in his back yard. Maybe six. 

***

Dean sat alone at the farthest reaches of the quad for lunch. Next year, he’d be a senior and Sam would be a freshman, and Dean wondered if his brother would want to sit with him. Sammy could be a pain in the ass, but he was better than no one. He didn’t know why he didn’t want to be friends with anyone, or why no one ever tried to be friends with him. He just felt like the other kids were in some movie about high school and he was in a different movie. They were in some high-budget movie, with really good lighting and wardrobe, and he was in some gritty low-budget thing. It wasn’t like they were poor. Dad was one of the best mechanics in town. Maybe that was the worst thing – he could never pin it down, it just _was_

He’d had a couple girlfriends, but not many friend-friends. Jo Harvelle had been his only real friend, but she and her mom had moved to Nebraska. She was as tough as any dude, and hot in her way, but in a perfectly normal way that didn’t make him uneasy. Hot or not, tough or wimpy, it didn’t matter. Nebraska might as well have been the outer reaches of Estonia for all the good it did him at lunch. 

He sighed, figuring that if he made it three out of four years of high school with no friends to speak of, he wasn’t going to miraculously turn popular. He dug around in his backpack for his lunch. Mom had handed him some Tupperware filled with leftovers, but he couldn’t figure out if it was last night’s tuna casserole or baked chicken from the night before that. He didn’t mind either way. Mom was a good cook, but she was born and raised in Lawrence. She wasn’t exactly perfecting her curry vindaloo. Whatever it was, it would be a neutral color and it would be soft.

Tuna casserole, he discovered, opening the lid. His little corner of the quad was a spot between the cafeteria and the art building, and he had a view out to the student parking lot. He kept his back to the wall based on some ingrained “just in case” that was borne of watching too many late-night movies with Dad. It left him open to survey his surroundings. For example, he could see Cassie – ex-girlfriend number one – positively canoodling with some walking jock itch. That was a bummer. He could see Lisa and Andrea, or as he liked to call them “the Future Teen Moms club,” standing by the cafeteria trying to look sexy and just looking nervous and a little mentally addled. 

And way off in the distance, worst of all, he saw Castiel walking with his head down, his hands in the pockets of his jeans, the kind that were probably purchased at the feed and tack store or the church thrift store. A guy like Castiel could have maybe made that look work, with his somewhat scary blue eyes and pouty little mouth – not that Dean looked at guys that way, but purely from an objective standpoint. Still, somehow the kid made it look even less cool than it might have looked on someone else. He always paired these jeans with ill-fitting flannel shirts or t-shirts that were too big. 

Like watching a nature documentary, like watching a poor little gazelle chilling out at the watering hole while some cheetah lurks in the background, ready for a race to the death, Dean spotted Meg and Ruby with their heads together, moving toward Castiel. He wanted to run and tackle the kid, get him out of harm’s way. After all, a cheetah stalking a gazelle was nature. Whatever Meg and Ruby cooked up together was sure to be unnatural. 

He didn’t know where those two went wrong. Ruby lived down the street from him growing up, and she and Sam were friends once upon a time. She’d seemed cool, nice even. She was funny and smart, almost as smart as Sam. But something happened to her when she hit puberty. She had gotten rude and snipey. She used to spend her winters in jeans and boots and heavy coats, her summers in cutoff jeans and sandals, but then she got boobs and her waist went inward while her hips went out, and suddenly she was a whole different person. It wasn’t just the way she looked, but the way she talked and moved through the world, eyes always narrowed and waiting to alight on something worth judging and being a bitch about. 

Meg moved to town from the East Coast around that time, and those two fell into step like nothing Dean had ever seen. They both had long, dark hair, and favored leather jackets with tight jeans, giving them the look of sisters or cousins. It was hive-mind through and through, the two of them teaming up to shred anyone that came across their path. The only thing that spared Sam was that Dean told Ruby he wasn’t afraid to hit her if she messed with his brother. Dad would have had a seizure if he knew that Dean had done that, but Dad didn’t know what Ruby had turned into. There were no Winchester sisters. Dad saw either little girls or grown women. He wouldn’t have known what to do with a teenage girl. 

Dean heard them giggling now, whispering and looking at Castiel. To his credit, the other boy didn’t turn around or even acknowledge that he knew anything was amiss. It wasn’t obliviousness, though. Dean saw Castiel shift his eyes – such a contrast to the flat, yellow Kansas grass – and gauge his surroundings. He banked right, toward the art building, and Meg and Ruby followed. They were just feet away from where Dean sat.

“Castiel,” Meg said, in that half singsong voice that made Dean’s arms tense up. 

Castiel didn’t turn around. 

“Castiel,” she said, dragging out the L sound. 

“I don’t think he wants to play,” Ruby said. 

“Not on our team, anyway,” Meg said. Their shared, screeching laughter echoed against the two buildings, the narrow walkway between them. 

“Leave him alone,” Dean said, as surprised as Castiel looked. 

Castiel had stopped dead in his tracks, stared at Dean with wide eyes. Dean couldn’t tell if he was more shocked and scared at the prospect of help than at whatever devilish plan Meg and Ruby had for him. Oh well, he couldn’t care now. He’d opened the box and he’d have to see what was inside. 

“Leave him alone?” Meg asked, her hands behind her back, her head cocked. She said it so sweet that it made Dean’s skin crawl a little bit. 

“We weren’t doing anything,” Ruby said. 

“Not yet, but you had that look in your eyes,” Dean said. 

“Can you tell the future, Dean?” Meg asked, feigning shock. 

“My grandma says that being able to tell the future is a mark of Satan’s work,” Ruby said with a resolute nod, the long dark tendrils of her hair bobbing in time with it. 

“We were just curious,” Meg said. 

“Yeah,” Ruby said. “We had heard some stuff, and we wanted to know it was true. That’s all. People ask us stuff sometimes, you know. It’s like we’re experts on things and people.”

They were standing behind Castiel, his icy blue eyes raised skyward, his lips moving a little bit. Dean wasn’t sure about that last part, like maybe it was a trick of the light. Regardless, he looked like a painting of a martyr. 

“Go be an expert on someone else,” Dean said. 

“But the things we heard about Castiel are more interesting,” Meg said. 

They crowded in close to him, moving with him as he tried to step to the side and away. They didn’t touch him or anything, just crowded in real close. 

“Yeah. We heard you got put in a loony bin,” Ruby said, ticking this rumor off on her finger. She thought about it, ticking each one off as she named them. “We heard you started doing heroin. We heard you’ve been doing heroin since the eighth grade and you finally overdosed. We heard you got a girl pregnant – we know that one isn’t true. We heard you got AIDS and had to go to a special hospital for people with AIDS. We heard you were a Russian spy. We also heard you went to Utah to become a Mormon.” 

“So which one is it?” Meg asked. “Maybe it’s, like, three at once. You know, you overdosed on heroin _and_ got AIDS.” 

“That’s only two,” Castiel whispered. His voice was like a spring wind through tall prairie grass.

Dean cringed. Of all the fucking things to say. This kid had zero sense of self-preservation. 

Meg and Ruby erupted in laughter, collapsing onto each other, holding on for dear life. Castiel merely stood there and stared up at the sky, seemingly oblivious to the spasmodic cacophony happening behind him. 

“All right, all right,” Dean said, getting up from where he’d been sitting. He had a plan and it was really awful. It was a bad plan, and it was throwing a distant acquaintance under the bus for the sake of this kid that Dean didn’t even know, really. But still – Garth was doing marginally better than Castiel, socially speaking. “If I give you a good one, will you leave this guy alone?” 

Meg and Ruby stopped laughing enough to listen. Meg still erupted a little in fits of laughter, trying to containing it but letting out sharp coughs. 

“So, I heard from Chuck who heard from Becky that Garth has a third nipple.” The fact that he had heard that it was “a bump the color of a nipple” versus “a third nipple” was irrelevant. Garth would survive this, Dean was sure of it. 

Ruby and Meg looked like Christmas – or whatever Satanic approximation that they held dear – had come early. They completely forgot about torturing Castiel in favor of pressing Dean for details. He made most of them up. 

They departed in a haze of happiness, floating away chattering dreamily about this new bit of information. Dean sat back down and put his empty Tupperware container back in his bag, zipped it up, sat there with it on his legs. Castiel slid down the wall and sat next to him. They were quiet a moment, Castiel staring off over the back of the school, Dean staring down at his thumbnail. 

“I could have defended myself,” Castiel said, each word bit off and spit out like wood chips. 

“Yeah, probably. But now you don’t have to.” 

Dean had never talked to Castiel, really. He’d seen him in class, of course, but the guy floated in and out of there like he was invisible. He spent most of the time staring out the window, his eyes a million miles away, his brain somewhere with them. But Dean had seen his papers when Mr. Crowley handed them back – As and Bs, all of them.

“Whatever.” 

“Where were you, anyway?” 

“How do I know that you won’t just tell Ruby and Meg sometime?” 

Dean shrugged. “I won’t. Garth really does have some weird nub on his chest. I’m guessing you aren’t a Mormon heroin addict Russian spy with schizophrenia.” 

“It is true. I don’t have a specific religious affiliation; I was not born in Russia; I have never done drugs; and I have never been diagnosed with a mental illness.” 

“So where were you?” 

Castiel put his knees up, hugged them close to his chest. He looked up at the sky again, in a compulsive sort of way, like he knew the answer wasn’t there, but he couldn’t help himself. 

“I went to find my father.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> School's almost out, and Dean has the coolest summer job in the world -- working at his Dad's shop. Yet, he's starting to learn that not everyone has it as easy as he does. All the while, these dreams he's been having persist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really appreciate the folks who have taken the time to read this so far, despite my myriad warnings. There were some parts in here, especially later on, that were really hard for me to write. I hope this resonates with you, and if it does, please tell your like-minded friends. You guys are great. I hope the weather is nice where you are and that you're having a good hair day.

Dean never found out what Castiel meant. The bell rang, and Castiel disappeared to his next class. Dean saw him later that afternoon in English, but he could hardly ask about his dad and all that in front of everyone. A couple times, he caught Castiel looking his way, that expectant eyebrow raise that indicated a person wanted to talk. Dean tried to flag him down after class, but he got swallowed up in the crowd. 

The next few nights, Dean had crazy dreams. There were old houses, and a creepy little kid. Castiel was there. He got himself turned into an action figure, which was endlessly amusing, as far as Dean was concerned. But then there was the other one where Sam was just different, wrong somehow, and no one knew why. They all tumbled in on themselves like clothes spinning in a dryer, slow and purposeless. And, of course, there was one with Castiel, with a feeling like he was important – the second-most important thing, after Sam. It was all unnerving. 

Dean tried to find Castiel at lunch, but he couldn’t. He hadn’t been curious about a person in a long time, probably not since Jo introduced herself in the sandbox with a wicked little uppercut to Dean’s ribs, all those years ago. 

Then it was the weekend and Dean didn’t care about his weird dreams or Castiel or anything, because Dad was going to let him putter around the shop. They were getting ready for the summer, for people coming in and getting their oil changed or their air conditioners looked at. It was a wild sense of anticipation, and him and Mike were pulling a weekend to prepare, even if they weren’t open. That was even better, because there would be no sensitive ears to offend, and it would be a brutal onslaught of cursing, dirty jokes, and raunchy stories. So, basically, it was the greatest thing. Dad had half-heartedly extended the invitation to Sam, who of course declined on the basis that he had to study for his finals – which weren’t for another two weeks. 

Saturday morning, Dean woke up without an alarm. The sun was already halfway up, but he looked at his clock and it was only six-thirty. He showered and put on his worst jeans, the ones that were already oil-stained and permanently rumpled. 

Mom wasn’t even up yet, but Dad was. The smell of coffee greeted Dean halfway down the stairs, and Dad offered him a cup without a word. He accepted it with a manly nod and swaggered over to the fridge to get some half-and-half. They sat at the kitchen table, drinking coffee, Dad reading the Saturday paper. Dean read the funnies and did the Jumble. 

“Better eat something,” Dad said, getting up and grabbing the cereal. He fixed a bowl for himself and a bowl for Dean, who was almost too excited to eat. 

When they were done, they headed out. Dean veered into the direction of the truck, but stopped short when Dad pulled him back. 

“I thought we’d take the Impala.”

Dean nodded, narrowed his eyes, like this was some kind of logical plan that required thoughts deeper than “the Impala – oh my God – I haven’t ridden in the Impala in months – this is amazing.” 

“Help me get the cover off,” he said. 

Dean pulled the cover back and they folded it, taking care that it didn’t get wrinkled, with the reverence of soldiers folding a flag. 

The doors creaked when they opened, the body groaning under their combined weight. Dad drove, of course. Dean would have gotten suspicious if Dad had let him drive, like at the end of the day he’d tell him that he had cancer or that he and Mom were getting a divorce. The car started up on the first try, roaring to life with a sassy rumble. 

He took the long way to the shop, enjoying driving the Impala as much as Dean enjoyed riding in it. The town passed by in a green-yellow-blue blur. Dean sat up while Dad talked, went over all that needed to be done. 

“We got some salvage parts that’ll need to be spruced up. The windows on the building could use a little elbow grease.”

Dad led him back to the office when they got there, a cramped space with two desks, half a dozen file cabinets, precarious stacks of paper, and one calendar with pictures of almost-naked ladies. Mike sat ensconced in this, feet up on his own desk – much messier than Dad’s – and drinking coffee from a Thermos. 

“You’re late,” he growled. 

“Did you miss me? I’m touched,” Dad said, smiling that shit-eating grin that must have gotten him out of a thousand speeding tickets in his youth. 

Mike just grumbled and kept drinking his coffee. 

Dad had owned the shop with Mike since Dean could remember. He used to play out back of the shop, in the vacant lot that was overgrown with weeds and abandoned shells of cars. It drove Mom nuts, sure that Dean would end up impaling himself on an exposed chunk of metal or get bit by something. He never got more than a scrape. Sam joined in when he was old enough, giving Mom double heart attacks, but providing Dean with a cop to his robber, an ally against the alien attacks, and a fellow human outrunning dinosaurs. Dean carried on with these games a little longer than most kids, to the point where even Sammy got a little tired of them. To his credit, he still played along. 

Now he got to play around in the shop, and it wasn’t playing. He would actually earn a little money for it. Dad set him to work out back, cleaning up odds and ends. By the end of the first hour, his hands were blackened and chafed; after two hours, he was filthy up to his wrists and his jeans had Dalmatian spots. 

Mike came out with a Thermos cup of coffee and handed it to Dean without a word. He nodded approvingly at the pile of clean parts stacked off to the side. 

Dean took a sip of coffee and spluttered. Mike just winked at him and went back inside. There was at least half a jigger of whiskey in the cup. 

He hadn’t ever had more than the occasional glass of wine on special occasions, but Dad liked to relax with a few beers or some whiskey himself, and Dean knew that it would do him no good to drink it all in one go. He sipped cautiously and slowly, each time grimacing a little at the dual heat of coffee and whiskey. By the time he saw the bottom of the cup, he felt light and happy. 

He was scrubbing the last of his assigned items, staring out at the vacant lot. Mike had gone at it with the weed eater, the dried foliage razed down to a jagged buzz cut. He did that two or three times a year, and Dean had hated it when he was little. It ruined his imaginary worlds.

Dean had the sense that he was doing something that mattered. He didn’t get that at school. He pulled decent enough grades, but it wasn’t his strong suit by anyone’s account. This, though . . . dirty hands, illicit booze, the sound of Mike and Dad’s good-natured ribbing – this was what he wanted his life to be. Throw in a pretty girl and eventually a kid or two, and he could die a happy guy. 

The whiskey must have worked a little more magic on him than he realized, for out in the far corner of the lot, there was a shadow that passed over even though there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. He only saw it for a second, but it impressed itself on his mind as sure as the sagging chain link fence. A trail of black shadow, oozing along like a silken train on an evening gown. He blinked and it was gone, the sunny day and the vacant lot same as they had been his whole life. 

***  
Lunchtime rolled around, and Dad sent Dean out with a twenty and a list of sandwiches for the three of them, to be obtained at Harvelle’s. 

It was just a couple blocks away from Dad’s shop, but Dean had gazed hopefully at the Impala. Dad just rolled his eyes and told him it was a nice day and he should walk. Someday, Dean thought. Someday, he’d at least get to _sit_ in the driver’s seat.

The place hadn’t been the same since Ellen and Jo moved to Nebraska, and frankly, neither had Mr. Harvelle. Every time Dean had seen him, he’d sort of been swimming through his days with a half-dreamy smile on his face that erred on the side of creepy and sad. But Harvelle’s still had the best sandwiches, and Dad went way back with Mr. Harvelle. Dad went way back with everybody. 

“Dean, hey,” Mr. Harvelle said when he saw him. 

It was a little early for the lunch rush, just a couple folks sitting in the distant reaches of the shop. Mr. Harvelle was back behind the counter, giving instructions on tomato slicing to some kid who had the completely non-enviable task of preparing the sandwiches. He smiled his sad smile and waved at Dean, hastening over to the counter.

“Hey Mr. Harvelle,” Dean said, feeling like he should give the guy an encouraging thump on the shoulder or something. “Dad and Mike sent me over for sandwiches . . .”

“You’re gonna have to start calling me Bill if you’re going to be all grown up,” he said, taking the sandwich order. This time, when he smiled, it looked closer to real. 

He rang up Dean’s order and the total didn’t come anywhere near what the numbers on the menu said. Dean stared at him a little blankly and he waved his hand. 

“Me and your Dad got a deal worked out,” he said. “This neighborhood’s got two honest mechanics, which is two more than most places can boast.” 

“All right. Well, thanks,” Dean said, still feeling the tight squeeze of awkwardness in his chest. “Hey, maybe it’ll be three honest mechanics in a few years.” 

“Oh yeah? They thinking of hiring someone?” Mr. Harvelle asked. 

Dean opened his mouth, ready to explain, before he got it, and he just said, “Hey now,” with what he hoped was a replication of Dad’s charming grin.

He sat at a seat by the window, legs stretched in front of him, waiting for the sandwiches. He stared out onto the street, the late spring sunshine, the same little shopping district. The midday weekend shopping rush was just starting up, young couples with kids and older couples looking really happy to be done with kids. Dean saw a few folks from school and some of his parents’ friends. 

And then, there was a break in the crowd. A lone figure emerged from the far end of the main drag. Dark hair, loping along in ill-fitting clothes, head down. It was Castiel. Dean watched the other boy come up the street, hands jammed in his pockets. As he got closer, the look of determination became plain on his face. His brow furrowed, his lips drawn and thin. He passed a few people, nearly bumping into them, raising his head to mutter an apology and then continuing on. 

“Dean! Sandwiches!” Mr. Harvelle held a brown bag over the counter, and Dean jumped up, startled. 

“Thanks,” he said again, hurrying out of the shop. 

He caught Castiel just as he was about to cross the street, calling out to him. Castiel raised his head, a flash of worry like a lightning strike across his face, worry that he was about to be publicly harassed on a weekend. But he saw Dean and nodded tentatively. 

Dean trotted over to him, the brown paper bag still clutched in his hand, getting sweatier by the second. “Want some company?” The question was out before he even thought about it, before he even thought about how Castiel might have been headed out to some wheat field or something. 

“No, that’s okay. I don’t have too far to walk. It’s just a couple blocks.” 

“I’m kind of headed that way,” Dean said, even though it was a stretch of the imagination to say so. 

Castiel shrugged. “It’s okay. I mean, whatever.” 

They turned off onto a smaller cross street, off the main road. Dean could circle around back the other side of the block, when it was time. 

“So, like, I never got to hear your story the other day. About your dad.” 

“There isn’t much to tell. I didn’t find him,” Castiel said. 

“Did you look in the freezer? My mom always looks for lost stuff there.” 

“I don’t see why he would be in a – oh, right. A joke. No, I didn’t find him in the freezer. He wasn’t under the couch, either.” 

Dean laughed out loud at that. 

They came to an intersection, and if Dean crossed, he’d officially be going out of his way, and Dad and Mike would be wanting their sandwiches. 

“I really gotta go this way,” he said. “Um, I’m sorry. About your dad.”

“I haven’t given up hope.” 

“Good,” Dean said, because what the fuck else could he say? 

“I’ll see you in class, I guess,” Castiel said. He took his hand out of his pocket and waved at Dean, who couldn’t help but notice how red and creased the hand was. 

Dean walked fast up the street, going in the back way, and tried to picture what Castiel’s life might be like. He didn’t often get glimpses of other people’s lives. Jo’s had been mostly like his own, except Ellen and Bill fought in a real way, not the mildly irritated way that Dean’s parents did. And then Cassie’s parents weren’t too far from the Winchesters, except Cassie’s dad was black. Even then, he still watched football and drank beer like every other adult man Dean had ever met. He still stood on the porch scowling if Dean brought Cassie home late, which was a normal dad thing to do. Dean imagined Castiel and his mom in a ramshackle apartment, or a falling-down shotgun house. 

“Damn, kid, was half the town at Harvelle’s?” Mike asked. 

“Sorry,” he mumbled. “I ran into a kid from school.” 

Dad sort of perked up at the potential mention of a friend. “Yeah?” 

Dean nodded, pulling their sandwiches from the bag, handing Dad’s to him. “Yeah. Freshman kid named Castiel. He’s pretty weird, I guess, but he’s in my English class. People aren’t that nice to him.” 

“You watch out for them weird kids,” Mike said, pulling a tomato slice from his sandwich and dangling it between his fingers. He swallowed it like a seagull eating a fish. “Next thing we know, you’ll be shaving parts of your head and listening to some nutjob in lipstick wailing and calling it music.”

Dad tossed a mustard-stained napkin at him. “Don’t listen to this one. You keep on being nice to that kid.” 

Dean thought about Castiel leaving for a third of the school year to go find his dad. He figured, if his own dad went missing, he’d do the same. Worse yet, if he didn’t know his dad at all, he’d still do it. His dad bugged the shit out of him sometimes. He was in the Marines back in the day, and he could be a hardass. But he also taught Dean how to fix cars and drive stick. He played catch with Sammy and even listened to him read essays he wrote about dumb shit like poetry. He was good to them and he was teaching them right. Dean wouldn’t trade him for anything.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean gets a chance to ask Castiel about where he went for most of the school year and gets left with more questions than answers. But he can't dwell too much on that because Garth invites him to the end-of-the-year party to end all parties. Meanwhile, he sees that mysterious plume of black smoke that he saw at the shop -- only this time, it leads him to an unexpected destination.

There was just a week left of school, and it left Dean feeling like his skin was about to crawl right off his body. It was the sense of change on the horizon, that anticipation that Big Things were about to happen. He got it every year, like that summer was going to be his big, defining summer. Usually, he spent the whole time bugging Dad about going to the shop or sitting at home and watching TV. 

Castiel added to this feeling, though he probably had no idea. He came up to Dean during lunch and asked to sit with him. That in itself was unusual. People usually had their lunch arrangements worked out after the first couple weeks. To up and start sitting with someone a few days before the end of school was unheard of. 

“Yeah, sure, okay,” Dean said, feeling like he was drowning. 

Castiel sat opposite him, away from the wall, slouching down with no support behind him. 

“Thank you for asking about my search,” he said, picking up a two-day old conversation, jarring Dean out of his prepared conversation starter about finals and how well Castiel thought he might fare in Mr. Crowley’s class. 

“No problem.” 

“I’m beginning to think he doesn’t exist.” 

“He does. Everyone has a dad.” But Dean knew that between wars and freak accidents and alcohol and whatever else, a person could go from walking around this earth to being worm food in the span of hours or minutes. His family had been spared tragedy, but there were cousins and friends of his parents aplenty to remind him how fucking awful the world could be from time to time. 

Castiel looked him up and down, from his freshly washed hair to his boots that still looked brand new even at the end of the school year. By contrast, Castiel’s Vans had holes at the crease where toe met arch, and his shirts were both frayed. Everything about him was clean, to be sure, but unmistakably worn. And it wasn’t the sort of practiced look that some affected. No, it was true wear and tear. 

“I probably shouldn’t sit with you,” Castiel said. “It will make you unpopular.” 

“It doesn’t matter. I’m not really popular as it is.” 

“You should be. You’ve got what it takes.” 

Dean didn’t know what it took, but the look Castiel leveled at him indicated that it possibly had something to do with Dean’s face. He didn’t want to delve into that too far. 

“I’d rather not. I mean, being able to impress kids at this school is a dubious skill at best,” Dean said. “They’re nothing to write home about, for the most part.”

“This is true,” Castiel said. 

Dean finished his sandwich and only then noticed that Castiel appeared to not be eating. He swallowed the last bite with guilt. He hadn’t offered any to him, and he had the sinking feeling that maybe he should have. He crumpled the sandwich bag up and shoved it deep into his backpack. He’d figure something out for next time. The school had free lunches for kids who needed them, but that assumed that one’s parents had their shit together enough to get their kids put on the program. And anyway, the cards they gave the kids for free lunch were bright fucking orange – might as well make them stand in a line with a neon sign over the lunch window. _Poor kids over here. Parents can’t feed them._

Castiel had a substantial pile of extirpated grass in front of him, the furry roots sticking up, dusted with soil. He stared down at it as if he couldn’t remember why he’d done it or even what the tiny plants were. 

“So, like, how do you think you’ll do in Mr. Crowley’s class?” Dean asked, smiling weakly. 

***  
School ended like it did every year, in a blind haze of final exams, locker cleaning, and weird schedules. Mr. Alastair took him aside after his final and told him that if he took the summer course that Mr. Alastair happened to be teaching, he’d be a good candidate for Honors Government in the fall, which Mr. Alastair also happened to be teaching. Dean resisted his advances, even though he knew Mom would be beside herself with joy if he took advanced anything. He figured his virtue was more important than an Honors class, though. 

Mr. Crowley’s class passed into memory for Dean with a five-question essay final and the bonus question _What is my favorite Scotch?_ Dean later found out that he was the only one who answered correctly.

On the last day of school, they let out at eleven and amid the papers floating around like confetti, the seniors hollering through the hallways like banshees, and the general chaos, Dean found himself at loose ends. He didn’t have to go pick Sammy up, because he was off with his nerd patrol on a sleepover. 

He went to the parking lot and stood next to the Dart, twirling his keys and trying to figure out what to do. 

Then, through the melee of kids, he heard his name and saw Garth pushing toward him. He didn’t look mad, but Dean figured he had maybe crossed over to the “scary and calm” side of things over Dean’s little improvisation regarding his third nipple – nubbin, really – so Dean hastened to get in the car. 

“Winchester!” Garth called. 

He got the door open and slipped inside, pretending so hard not to hear that he was sure he would end up with a nosebleed. Garth grabbed onto the doorframe and cornered Dean. 

“I’m sorry about the nipple thing!” Dean blurted. “They were about ready to pulverize this freshman kid, you know? And you’re like, kind of one of the underground cool kids or whatever, so I told them that because if they had kept on at that freshman kid, he could have died or something.” 

Garth straightened up and raised an eyebrow. Dean braced himself for a punch, but it didn’t come. Instead, Garth clapped him on the shoulder and laughed. 

“Are you fucking kidding me? _You_ told those crazy bitches that? I had no clue.”

“I’m sorry!” He could fight, Dad had taught him, but he didn’t want to, especially not Garth, who was a nice enough guy. 

“Dude, don’t be. That got me so fucking laid. Like, wow. Like, stuff I’d only ever seen in porno. Those two are into some crazy shit,” he said, eyes locked on some point in the distance, somewhere between frightened and turned on. 

“Oh. Well. You’re welcome, then.” 

“This makes what I am about to say that much more awesome,” Garth said. 

Dean raised his eyebrows, waiting for his world to be rocked. 

“My mom is out of town, and I am having an end-of-the-year party on Saturday.” He smiled down at Dean like he’d just told the best iteration of “The Aristocrats.” 

“Cool,” Dean said, not sure if it was general bragging or an invitation. 

Garth rolled his eyes. “And are you coming?”

“Right. Um, I – I’d have to – um—” He mumbled the next bit, turning his face away and talking to the rear-view mirror. “Ask my mom.” 

“Yeah, totally, of course,” Garth said, smacking him on the shoulder. “Do what you gotta do. But you’d be a definite asset to the party.”

Dean mumbled a thanks, and Garth loped off to spread the word. He really would try to go, as it already had the makings of the kind of party that passed into legend. 

He decided he better just head on home, maybe take a nap. Days like this weren’t meant to be full of activity, anyway. He was on the main road headed home when he saw it again: the shadow he’d seen the other day at the shop. Banking right, he followed it on an impulse as it slithered down the street. He had to know what it was, had to see if it was going to hurt anyone. 

He followed it down a side street that led to a sort of shabby neighborhood. The lawns went from green to yellow to light brown as he drove, the cars more faded and beat up. If the shadow knew it was being followed, it didn’t let on. Dean followed it halfway down the blocks, watching it slide over fences or through the leaves of trees. It finally passed over a white house, one with peeling paint and a screen door barely hanging on. A battered air conditioner stuck out of the front window. 

The shadow stopped at this house and disappeared. Dean didn’t see it go up or down or sideways – it just wasn’t there anymore. He craned his neck, looked all over, but there was nothing. He sat there a moment in confusion. 

Then, worse than this mysterious shadow, he saw Castiel walking down the street. 

Dean gunned the engine and sped off down the street. He passed Castiel, who had his head down and was lost in his usual state of pensive thought. Dean looked through the rearview mirror. Castiel showed no signs of seeing him, continuing along. Before Dean drove out of view, he saw Castiel walk up to a house and go inside – the same house the shadow had disappeared from. 

He swung a sharp right turn, parked in front of a house that was either abandoned or in a world of shit, and cut the engine. He put his hands on the steering wheel, watching them shake. What if that thing had gone inside Castiel’s house, and he was in trouble right at that very moment? It was the stuff of his weird dreams, the ones he’d been having since he was little, since he knew what dreams even were, it seemed. 

Dean figured that if he went up to Castiel’s door and knocked, there were a limited number of things that would happen. Castiel wasn’t the mean sort of picked-on kid, the kind who would turn around and kick the dog in his frustration. He bore it with grace and a matter of course. So he wasn’t likely to tell everyone what a nutjob Dean was and how one time he came banging on the door for no good reason. Even if he did do that, who would listen and who would believe him? People would see it as an act of desperation, trying to make Dean seem like the weirdo when the case was very obvious for Castiel to be the weirdo. And then, of course, there was the potential that he was actually in some trouble. 

Times like this, he asked himself what Dad would do. Dad knew and understood things. He was a quiet man who sipped his beer and nodded at the world, who spent whole months patiently teaching Dean to take apart an engine and put it back together in working order. He dribbled soccer balls up and down the backyard with Sammy, even though Dean had heard him tell Mom that he was disappointed that the youngest Winchester was not enamored with baseball. Dean decided that John Winchester would knock on that kid’s door. If Dad were in the car with him, he’d say, “If nothing else, you showed that kid someone cares.” 

He flipped a bitch in some stranger’s driveway, cutting a little too wide, the car bouncing over a wedge of high curb. There was a minor squeal of tires and Dean was heading back down the block, sweating in the early-summer afternoon heat as he tried to come up with a good story as to why he had come calling. 

Castiel was shuffling down the front walk, to the edge of the yard where there was a dented mailbox. Upon closer inspection, Dean saw that some crusted streaks of egg yolk dripped down the side – evidence of an egging that had never been fully washed away. 

Dean pulled up in front of the house, spinning the barest cobweb of a story about why he was doing so. Castiel looked up at the sound of the Dart’s rumbling engine. Dean got out of the car and Castiel glanced backward at his house, perhaps seeing it in the harsh light of a new person’s gaze. Dean kept his eyes steady on Castiel’s face, never once indicating that he was looking at the weathered house. 

“Garth invited me to this party,” he said by way of greeting. 

Castiel nodded. 

“And, like, I was driving by here, and I saw you walking, and I thought maybe you’d want to come to the party. Garth’s mom is going to be out of town and I think he’s inviting half the school, which means the rest of them are going to show anyway, so . . . I figured you might want to get a semi-official invite, as my plus-one or something,” he rambled. 

“A party,” Castiel said with a mix of reverence and question. 

“A gathering of people for celebration, yep.” 

There was no evidence of anything amiss, no sounds spilling from the house. The shadow wasn’t lurking in the corner, sticking its shadow tongue out and making faces behind Castiel’s back. Dean swallowed hard, throat suddenly dry, feeling foolish and overwrought.

Castiel leaned on the fence, the top of the chain link fence that separated it from the rest of the world digging into his forearms. There was a sad gravity in his eyes that Dean had never seen before. “I can’t go.” 

“Oh, right. I mean, yeah. I mean, you probably have a pretty early curfew—”

“No,” he said, the word rumbling out like a boulder. “It’s not that. It’s – I can’t go to this party. The school hates me. I mean that in a literal sense.” 

“They just don’t know you,” Dean protested. 

Castiel smiled, and it was sadder than a sack full of sneezing puppies. “You’re a very nice person, but it appears that you don’t know shit, as they say.” 

“And you don’t, either, apparently. If the rest of the school hates you, and one person is nice to you and offers you a chance to get to know said school so that maybe they’ll hate you less, and you turn it down, that’s pretty goddamn stupid, in my book,” Dean said. 

“Why would I go to this party? So that the same backwoods jerks who push me around at school can do it without the risk of an adult anywhere near? At least at school, a teacher or someone usually steps in before I get anything broken, but at some party—”

“I’ll make sure no one fucks with you!” 

Castiel cocked his head and pursed his lips. “Why are you even trying to be my friend?” 

_Because I had these crazy dreams where you’re really important and a superhero or something_ sounded too crazy, even for the current conversation, so he just shrugged. “I don’t have any to speak of. Maybe we could not have some friends together.” 

Castiel’s face softened and he stood up, rubbed his eyes, scratched his chin. “You’re the most maddening human I’ve ever met.” 

“Thank you.” And he meant it. “So, you’re coming with me, right?”

“I didn’t say that. Go on, get out of here,” Castiel said. 

“But—”

“Shut up. Go,” Castiel said. 

“Well fuck you and good night,” Dean said, getting into the Dart and peeling away.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean goes to the party, and meets an old friend there. Afterward, he goes to Biggerson's, where he meets a newer friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is where the hetero action comes into play, but it is also where the relationship between Dean and Castiel gets interesting.

He didn’t let this get in the way of a good time. If Castiel wanted to be a self-righteous prick, that was entirely his own business and did not concern Dean. So, he sweet-talked Mom with a promise of mowing the lawn _and_ edging the yard and she said a tentative yes, pending a co-sign from Dad. Dean secured this with a promise that Dean would take Sam to a movie of Sam’s choosing.

And so, on the appointed day, he found himself driving to Garth’s, filled with a sense not only of promise, but promise fulfilled. 

When he arrived at Garth’s modest little house, the kind of thing that might be classed a “bungalow” in real estate terms, the party was in full swing. No one had spilled into the yard yet, but there was a sense that the inside concealed a breathing, complex organism that wouldn’t be contained for long.

Dean let himself in, and the scene was one of such Midwestern teenage debauchery that he nearly blushed. Rap pulsed from speakers set up in the living room, and some of the girls were making a valiant effort to dance, though it was really just a vague “rubbing up against the nearest boy” sort of product. The boys paired with these gyrating hips hardly complained, swaying and grinding mostly in time with the narrow teenage backsides at their crotches. 

Garth lumbered through the crowd, nodding appreciatively at the goings-on, and came up to Dean, pulling him in for a half-hug and a thump on the back. 

“Glad you came, man,” he said, taking a small bottle of whiskey from his back pocket. He took a swig and offered it to Dean, who accepted with a hearty thank-you and not a second thought. 

The whiskey burned like a prairie fire, all the way down to the deepest pit of his stomach. In its wake was the low warmth and giggly head rush of a buzz. 

“I am glad I did too,” Dean said.

Garth put his arm around Dean’s shoulder and addressed him with the level of gravitas only a whiskey-drunk person could ever achieve. “We should hang out more. Starting this summer. And you should sit with us at lunch next year.” 

“That’s a serious invitation.” 

Garth furrowed his brow. “I mean every word of it.” 

“Well, hey, far be it from me to talk myself out of a job.” 

Garth pulled him close, squeezed him with a punishing grip that would make a boa constrictor a deeper shade of green with envy. “Fuckin’-a right, man.” 

They chatted a while longer, passing the whiskey around until Dean could almost match Garth’s drunken grip. But he moved along, leaving Dean feeling a little adrift in this sea of people he knew but didn’t know. Chuck was there, listening dutifully to Becky as she chattered away about some book she liked, some weird-ass horror thing. She had him pinned down in an armchair, sitting on his lap, her arms around his neck. He nodded at Dean, tried to make a break for it, but oblivious Becky didn’t budge. Ruby and Meg were circling around like sharks, their heads together, ready to sniff out any blood in the water. Dean slipped away from them, went out to the back yard. He found Anna Milton out there, sitting alone on the porch swing, one foot pushing her back and forth. He sat down next to her and she smiled. Her hair looked orange in the deep yellow porchlight.

“I don’t know if I’m cut out for parties,” she said. 

“I might not be, either.” 

They had had Mr. Alastair’s World History class together the previous year, sharing a few dark laughs over his obsession with the particularly nasty parts of human history. 

“A year from now, we’re going to be at the exact same party. All these parties are the same. I go to them once, twice a year, and it’s always the same. Same people, different houses. Same drama and disgusting alcohol and terrible music. I hate that radio stuff,” she said. 

Dean laughed, thinking of his tape collection, the cassette player in his car the only nod to an update it would ever see, the endless ribbons of Styx, Zeppelin, Metallica, Motörhead – anything with raging guitar and massive drums. It wasn’t the pop radio stuff, the stuff that was old the second it made it out to Kansas. He didn’t know much about the world at large, but he knew that already the folks on the coasts or in Chicago were onto something else. He would much rather play it safe with what he had been hearing all his life in Dad’s shop or from Mom’s record collection. 

“What kind of music do you like?” 

“The Holy Trinity, of course: Johnny, Hank, and Patsy.” 

“Hot damn.” 

She smiled, and in the harsh porch light, he thought he saw a little rise of color on her pale cheeks. “I’ll probably never hear them at a party, unless I throw it myself.” 

The only thing left to do was kiss her, and this he did with as much whiskey-soaked sweetness as he could muster. He reminded himself constantly that she was thin and delicate, that he couldn’t pull her close the way Garth had hugged him when he arrived. Dean was rough and clumsy under the best of circumstances, and he liked these small delicate types of girls, so he had to be careful. He remembered reading _Of Mice and Men_ last year, and he didn’t want to be the mentally challenged kid that crushed poor little Anna on accident. 

She tasted like rum, which made Dean smile against her lips. 

“What?” she asked. 

“Nothing. Just, you didn’t mention you had booze.” 

“Didn’t think I needed to,” she said. “You seemed like you’d found some somewhere yourself.” 

He kissed her harder for that, for calling him out on shit. 

It ended mutually several minutes later, Anna smiling and wiping her lips, Dean smoothing his hair in the back where her fingers had run up the short bristles. 

“Okay, so _that_ definitely does not happen to me at every party,” Anna said. 

“Glad I could be of service,” he said, grinning like the dope he was.

“Be careful with that smile, Dean.”

Then the sliding glass door opened and out poured a tumble of kids, indistinct as they hooted and hollered and made a general ruckus. 

“That’ll be my cue to leave,” she said. “My mom always tells me to come home before things get too crazy, and I’m pretty sure this one is reaching critical mass. I don’t want to call her from Mills’ office. Again.” 

“I’m so sure you got arrested once,” Dean said, rolling his eyes. 

“I did,” she said. “Stole a bunch of make-up from the drug store.” 

“Well, hell. She picked me up once for spray-painting bright orange dicks on the side of an office building.” 

“Look out Bonnie and Clyde,” Anna said, getting up off the porch swing and making it rock back and forth. “It was good, um, talking to you. And whatnot.” 

“Let me give you a ride home.” 

She laughed out loud, sharp and rich. “You’re drunk, and anyway, I just live a couple blocks over.” 

“Then I’ll walk you.” 

“Very good. Lawrence is as bad as New York City when the sun goes down.” 

They left just as the mass of kids that had burst out and shattered the night were sitting in the grass and playing an increasingly high-stakes game of Truth or Dare. He took her hand and pulled her through the house, which was crammed wall-to-wall with people now. Everyone was there, plus people he’d never seen before who went to other schools. 

He tried to find Garth and was about to give it up, not seeing him in the sea of people, but then he came by, attached to Ruby and Meg like a three-headed squid. The two girls giggled and ran their hands down his torso. He disengaged long enough to give Dean another crushing half-hug and kiss Anna’s hand. 

“Thanks for inviting me,” Dean said. 

“Of course, man. Hey, I’m serious about hanging out.” 

“I’ll be working at my dad’s shop over the summer, but yeah, we’ll have to.” He felt an unreasonable surge of pride saying that out loud. 

“Good deal. Means you’ll have beer money, right?” 

Then Meg and Ruby were dragging him off down the hall. Dean didn’t envy him. 

The front yard was quiet, the sound of crickets and distant bullfrogs overpowering any sound of the party that might have made it out there. Dean felt like there was more air, like the party had sucked the atmosphere from the back yard. 

Anna took off toward her house and Dean had to hustle to keep up. This was good. A little while longer and he would be okay to drive. Maybe he’d go get some fries or something. He’d be fine. 

“I saw you sitting with Castiel,” Anna said. “At school a couple times.” 

Dean nodded. “Yeah. He’s weird, but nice. Stubborn.” 

“I know. We were friends once upon a time.” 

“What happened?” 

“I don’t know how to explain it without being a bitch. I don’t want to, you know, tell tales and whatnot. Especially since – well – people talk so much about him. Too much.” 

“I won’t tell anyone. I feel for the kid.” 

“He’s just got a really tough life. And he doesn’t deal with it well. He makes it tougher on himself, I guess.”

“Like disappearing for three months.” 

She laughed and shook her head. “Yeah, like that. To find his dad?” 

“Bingo. He’s done it before?” 

“Yeah. When things get real bad, that’s his out.” 

Things must have been real bad and Dean didn’t want to think about it, so he pulled Anna close and kissed her again. The rum taste was wearing off and she tasted like traces of lip-gloss and river water. Her hips were wide but frail, like a vase or a violin. He wondered what his own hips could be compared to. Probably an old ceramic pickle tub. 

She pulled away and stroked his face, looked up at him with eyes wider than the moon, and kept walking. The only indication that he was to follow was her hand stretched behind her, narrow fingers poised like ballerinas. He took it, his hands – already rough and too big – feeling inadequate for the task. 

She stopped at the end of the block, a house on the corner. The lawn was neatly trimmed and under the windows were summer’s vanguard – daffodils, tulips, those massive puffballs that looked like fireworks, honeysuckle. In the streetlight glow, the house was a dirty yellow and the door was orange, but he guessed it was white in the daytime and the door was that particularly inviting shade of red that was always such a good color for the doors of perfect little houses. 

“My dad will have your hide if he sees you try to kiss me,” she said. “And your hide looks much better on you than it would in our den.” 

“Agreed,” Dean said, settling for a hug. “Take care of yourself.” 

She took a little box of mints from the pocket of her jeans, handed one to Dean, popped two in her mouth. She went up the flagstone path, stopped at the door with her hand around the knob. 

“Hey, Dean,” she said. “If you see Castiel – will you tell him I said hi? And I miss him?” 

“Sure thing,” Dean said, “but it might mean more if you told him yourself.” 

She went inside the house without another word. 

The walk back to the party was quiet and lonely and sobering. When he got back to the house, the party had spilled outside into the yard, with a tussle happening on the lawn which looked about to go from the status of “clean fun horsin’ around” to an actual fight. He thought about going back inside, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do it, so he got into the Dart. He sat there a minute, gauging all his personal systems, figuring out if he was okay to drive. He determined he was. 

He didn’t want to go home. It was just after eleven, and Dad had said he could stay out until two – but not to make a habit of such things. He wanted to milk it for all it was worth, not just because it was a rare treat, but also because he wanted Sammy to think he was off doing something exceptionally cool. 

There was fuck-all nothing open in Lawrence at that time of night, except the bars and Biggerson’s. He longed toward the shining day in which he could walk into a bar, order a Miller High Life, and sit there drinking it. Maybe there would be a good-natured debate over Chevy vs. Ford vs. Dodge. Until then, there was Biggerson’s, and what they lacked in beer they made up for in pie. 

He parked up front and went in, an aggressively blond girl greeting him at the door. It was too late for her brand of perkiness, but there she was. She showed him to a booth in the back, and he slid into it, enveloped by the smell of disinfectant and years of French fry grease. He smiled as charmingly as he could and ordered a slice of cherry pie and some coffee. 

“Ice cream?” she asked with the kind of in-joke temptation that only waitresses can call up, as though adding a scoop of melting, generic vanilla would lift the veil on some untold secret. 

“Sure,” Dean said. 

He sat back in the booth, scrubbed his hand over his face. He could still smell Anna – magnolia detergent, lavender shampoo. He didn’t even know what he was doing there. 

A lone figure across the place caught his eye, slouched over a cup of coffee and a table strewn with newspaper clippings, notebooks, and highlighters. The messy brown hair and ill-fitting flannel shirt were recognizable at a thousand paces. 

Dean thought about what Anna had said and about how they’d left things the last time they talked and how maybe both of those were two pictures of the same scene. He went over to the table, stood there unnoticed for a few seconds. 

“Hey,” Dean said. 

Castiel looked up in surprise, marking an unintentional slash with an orange highlighter across the paper he was toiling over. “Hi,” he said, squinting at Dean as though he were trying to decide if he was a hallucination or not. 

“Care if I join you?”

“I – I—” He looked helplessly at the papers around him, a whole conversation happening on his face as he considered it. Dean waited. “Sure.” 

Dean sat down, turned the same smile that he used on the waitress on Castiel. He would be crushed if he ever found out that smile wasn’t charming. 

“What ya got here?” he asked, picking up a news clipping. 

Castiel snatched it out of his hand before he could read more than a few words. “A thing.” 

Dean remembered an injured dog him and Sammy had found once, how Dean had wanted to charge into the blackberry bramble where it was lodged and pull it out. But Sammy had said no. Sammy sat in front of the blackberry bush, plucking berries off. He ate a few himself, and then he pushed a couple toward the little dog. The creature resisted at first, but then reached out a tentative paw to pull it toward itself. After a little while, it realized that was making blackberry juice and not much blackberry survived, so it pulled itself out from under the bush. Dean wanted to grab it, but Sammy still said no. Sammy sat there while the pathetic thing ate a couple blackberries. Finally, after more than an hour, it limped over and sat in Sammy’s lap. They took it to the vet’s office and it turned out to belong to some old lady who lived on a farm and loved nothing in this world but that dog. Right now, Castiel was the dog and Dean was trying to be Sammy. 

Castiel shuffled the papers together, organizing them with the kind of speed that could only come from a lot of practice. When he was done, the whole lot was bulging from two plain folders and one notebook. He lined up his highlighters and pens, positioning them this way and that until it satisfied some inner feng shui. 

The waitress tracked Dean down with his pie and coffee. 

“Sorry about disappearing. I didn’t see this guy when I came in,” he said, gesturing to Castiel. “He looks like he could use some pie, too.” 

Dean had some money on him and he was determined to make up for lunch that last week of school, by God. 

“No, no, I’m fine,” Castiel said. 

“Fries, then? Come on, you were working pretty hard over here.” 

Castiel rubbed his eyes. “Pie is fine.” 

“Cherry? Apple? Banana cream?” the waitress asked. 

“Cherry,” he mumbled. 

“Great, comin’ right up.” 

Castiel looked pained at the whole thing, but he mumbled a thank you. Dean waved him off. 

Dean took a sip of his coffee and a bite of pie, dredging the crust through the melting ice cream. 

“Your mom doesn’t mind you being out so late?” 

“No,” he said with an incredulous little laugh. “Does yours?”

Dean shrugged. “Probably, but my dad won this round.”

“How very . . . something or other.” 

It was the tiniest fissure in Dean’s psyche, but he felt it as keenly as though the entire Grand Canyon were lodged inside his head. He thought back to all the kids he knew whose dads had run off, or whose parents worked so much on different schedules that they only saw one or the other at any given time. He’d never stopped to think about how this wasn’t true for everyone, even when he knew it in a factual sense. He looked up at Castiel, sitting there with his face utterly inscrutable. 

The waitress set down a slice of pie in front of Castiel, and he took a bite, eyes still locked on Dean, who was cut loose by this sudden realization. Judging by the electricity in Castiel’s eyes, he knew damn well what was happening to Dean. 

Dean set down his fork and took another sip of coffee. Anna’s words kept echoing in his mind, about Castiel. He remembered those words and let them sink into the core of himself. 

He didn’t understand people under the best of circumstances, never mind something like this. But he was here and he was invested. Sometimes Dean was a dick, too. He was determined not to let Castiel get to him. 

So he didn’t say anything, because there was nothing to say. He’d just get himself in trouble. He sipped his coffee and stared into space, which was exactly what he would be doing if he had not run into Castiel at all. 

They sat like this a while, Castiel staring off at some point over Dean’s shoulder and vice versa. And then, Castiel took out a photocopied news story, highlighting a line or two as he read. Dean had to exercise every bit of restraint he could gather together, but he managed to not look at the paper. It was very important that he not look at the paper. 

The waitress came by with the check and Dean took it. Castiel flicked his eyes to it and then back to his paper. Dean said nothing, just fished out enough to cover the bill plus a tip. 

“No rush,” she said, nodding. The late hour had finally caught up to her; her smile flagged and her ponytail began a slow descent to the nape of her neck. 

“How was the party?” Castiel asked when the waitress left. He didn’t lift his eyes from his paper. 

“Good. I saw Anna Milton there.” 

This got him to put his paper down. “How is she?”

“She’s good, I guess. Ask her yourself.” Castiel looked up when he said that, surprised that someone had matched his attitude. ”Yeah, I said it.” 

“I can’t.” 

“Oh, you’re physically incapable of walking up to her and saying hello? Or calling her on the phone?”

“Don’t play dumb. It doesn’t suit you. I can’t. She’s – not exactly popular, like the way the cheerleaders are popular, but people really seem to like her. And if they see me talking to her, they’ll think she’s weird,” he said. 

“Or they’ll think it’s a nice thing for her to do, and how she’s extra-cool because this high school bullshit doesn’t lead her life for her. Incidentally—” Dean leaned over the table, close enough to smell cheap laundry detergent, the kind Mom wouldn’t even buy if it was the last kind on the shelf. “That’s more than I can say for you.”

“It’s so easy for you to say.” 

“Is it? You see my cup overflowing with friends?” 

“You could be popular if you tried.” 

“So could you. Hell, Garth does it and he has a third nipple.” 

“Does he really have a third nipple?”

Dean waved his hand. “I guess technically it’s a nubbin. Look, you’re not a bad-looking guy yourself – not that I know anything about how guys look.”

Castiel rolled his eyes at that. 

“Point is, you’re not exactly locked in a bell tower, doomed to life as a shut-in.” 

“I’m sure there was a compliment buried in there somewhere, so thanks.” Castiel packed up his papers and tossed them in a backpack that was more duct tape than bag. “And thanks for the pie. I better go.” 

“I’ll give you a ride,” Dean said, scooting out of the booth. 

“No you won’t.” 

“Um, yes, I will.” 

“What if I don’t want a ride?” 

Dean got out his keys. “Then you’re dumb.”

Castiel glared at him, but followed him out the door and to the car anyway. The night was cool with only a prickle of humidity in the air and the sky was clear and blue-black, spreading over the town, off to the cornfields and beyond. Somewhere out there was Topeka and Wichita and Denver and Austin and New York City and London. It never ceased to freak Dean out if he thought about all the places that weren’t Lawrence and what a small percentage of the known universe this place really was. It was a name on a map to most people, if that. 

He unlocked Castiel’s door. Castiel grudgingly got in, sat there with his backpack on his lap and his arms crossed over his chest. Dean rolled his eyes and got in the driver’s side. 

The town was still and silent. They were far away from the college scene, the only part of town that might be rollicking this time of night. Instead, it was a world of orange streetlights and black pavement, of the shadows of houses and the barest familiarity of landmarks. Gas station signs and fast food signs were the only splashes of real color. 

Dean made his way to Castiel’s house, the rumble of the engine offering a small comfort in the otherwise painfully silent ride. It was dark when he pulled in front.

“Thanks,” Castiel said, his hand on the door. “And – I’m sorry. I—”

Dean held up his hand. “No chick-flick moments.”

***  
Sammy was the only one awake when he got home, sprawled on the couch, zoning out to a movie on TV. Dean sat in the recliner, leaned his head back. 

“Mom and Dad asleep?” 

“Yeah,” Sam said. “How was the party?” 

Dean shrugged. “It was a party. I made out with this girl from school.”

“Nice.” Sam sat up and cocked his head, contemplating something. “I wonder if I’ll ever make out with a girl.” 

“Sure you will,” Dean said. “There’s plenty of girls out there who don’t know they’re lesbians, and you’d be a perfect last stop before full-time rug-munching.” 

Sam threw a pillow at him. “Jerk.” 

“Bitch.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean's dreams are getting worse, while his relationship with Anna gets more involved. But after their first real date, Dean finds Castiel in a situation he can't ignore. How will he help his new friend?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things heat up in this chapter. There is some strong language surrounding a violent attack, plus mentions of child neglect and abuse. From here on out, the story gets dark.

His dreams started getting longer and more involved. He could smell sulfur and death. The thing that surprised him about rotting bodies was that underneath the rotten meat smell, there was a kind of sweetness. But it wasn’t sweetness like anything good. It was cloyingly sweet, like corn syrup and fruit flavoring. In these new dreams, these crazy things that went on for hours or days, he was old, like thirty or something. He could feel his bones and his back muscles wearing down. His feet hurt all the time from wearing heavy work boots. He constantly smelled of sweat.

The dreams were detailed and excruciatingly long. Sometimes it was hours of sitting and talking with Sam, who was also older. It was stacks of books and collecting herbs and graveyard dirt and all manner of things. Sometimes, other people he knew showed up. Dad’s friend Bobby was there, and so were Jo and Ellen Harvelle. Some people were strangers. 

“Dream” felt like the wrong word. There was something incredibly real about them, like he became this other person or other version of himself. It was less like a dream and more like he was experiencing this in real life, more real than any news show or nature show or anything he’d ever seen on TV.

The absolute worst part was that somewhere in all this, he had gained the whole life and memory of this other version of himself. When he was in this dream world, he knew for a fact that he never finished high school and both his parents were dead. He drank too much because he had gone to literal Hell. Dean knew it all and remembered it all, this guy’s life. His life, sort of.

He hadn’t realized how bad this was all getting until Mom came into his room one morning – or what he thought was morning. 

“Dean Winchester, you get up right now,” she said, yanking the covers off him. 

He pulled the sheet back up and mumbled something, turned over and faced the wall. Then, she was sitting on the edge of his bed, her hand on his forehead. 

“Are you sick?” 

“I don’t know,” he said, and it was true. 

She rolled him over, peered in his eyes, put her hand on his forehead again, opened his mouth and looked down his throat. 

“Geez, Mom, come on,” he said, batting her hand away and sitting up. 

“You went to bed at nine last night and now it’s one in the afternoon. I stood here for three minutes and you didn’t even budge.”

He was so tired, deep inside himself. His arms felt like chalk. He could have slept another five hours, he was sure. 

“Nine o’clock? And now it’s one?”

She nodded, her eyes tight and sad. She worried at a loose thread on Dean’s blanket. “Are you depressed?” 

“No, I’m not,” he said, which was also true. He felt okay about things, for the most part. 

“You can tell me. I won’t just run off and tell your dad.”

John Winchester had many good qualities, but understanding depression was not one of them. If Dean _was_ depressed, and Dad found out about it, he would have told Dean to snap out of it. He’d have given him some crazy task, like weeding the back lot by the shop by hand or painting the fence out back of the house. He appreciated that Mom knew this about Dad and that she was willing to hold onto the information until the time was right. Still, Dean wasn’t actually depressed. 

“Mom, I’m not depressed. I’ve just – I don’t know. I just want to sleep.” 

She smoothed the blanket over him, pulled a corner of the fitted sheet back down over the mattress where it had come loose. She smelled like she always did – cooking and their house and that perfume she always wore, something like cinnamon and sandalwood. 

“You stay in bed,” she said. “I’ll fix you something to eat. And if you’re not up and at ‘em by ten tomorrow morning, I’m taking you to the doctor.”

“I guess that’s fair.” 

“It’s more than fair.” She got up, went to the door. “Don’t forget: You still need to take Sam to the movies.” 

She left and came back a while later with orange juice, toast, eggs, and hash browns. The toast was juicy with butter and there was a small pool of it underneath the eggs, to say nothing of the glossy sheen on the potatoes. Whatever ailed him now, he could add heart disease to the list 

She sat with him while he ate, watching his every move and divining meaning from the way he drank his orange juice and ate his potatoes. It might have bothered him, except for the memories he had of his other self, his other life. He thought about this one dream he had, a long time ago, where he really had been sick, and all he wanted was his mom – but there was no Mary Winchester in this version of his life. 

“Thanks,” he said. 

“For what?” She ran her hand through the damp spikes of his hair. 

He shrugged. “Making me breakfast. Making sure I’m okay.” 

She raised an eyebrow. “You must really not be feeling good. I’m your mom, kiddo. If I didn’t do that kind of stuff, it would be dereliction of duty.” 

He didn’t want to scare her, so he couldn’t say what he was thinking, which was that it wasn’t dereliction of duty he was worried about. Even if she had been downstairs and left him to his own devices, he’d still be grateful. No, what he was worried about was the thought of her being dead. 

She kissed his forehead and took his empty plate, went back downstairs. He lay back on his pillow and stared at the ceiling. His back ached from lying down, but all he wanted to do was sleep more. But it wouldn’t do any good, because if he dreamed, he would just dream that other world, and it was hardly relaxing. He had lost the hope of it being just a dream. He was sure it was another world, something happening in tandem with his own life.

He dreamed of a powerful witch, one who had pledged her soul to Hell centuries ago and had spent the intervening years honing her crafts. He dreamed of tracking her and fighting her and losing her at the last possible, most inconvenient moments. She had long red hair in snarled burrs, her green eyes mean and glowing. She growled and taunted him, said she was going to destroy him and everything he held dear. She started by breaking Sam’s arm. Then she opened a glowing rip in the air and jumped through as easily as a kid going down a slide. He was left there, holding Sam while he howled. Minutes later, Castiel rushed in, gun drawn, eyes wild.

He tossed and turned and fought to stay awake, but he couldn’t. He slipped into sleep and then he saw himself and Castiel standing over a woman tied to a chair. There was some kind of symbol above her, which she kept looking at and snarling. This was a different one from the red-haired woman. She had black hair, straight and shiny, her eyes dark and cold like obsidian. She leveled a gaze at him that could have turned boiling water to ice. 

“You’ll never stop us. Don’t you see? We’ll always be here.” 

Dean responded by dousing her with holy water and standing back, face like stone, while she screamed. 

He woke up again and dry-heaved over the side of his bed.

Dad came home in the evening, knocked on Dean’s door in a perfunctory manner. He came in before Dean could even tell him it was okay. 

“Hey, Dean,” he said, leaning on the doorknob. His hands were black and smudged. His fingernails boasted little lines of grime underneath them. “How are you feeling?” 

“I’m okay. Fine,” Dean said, and it was mostly the truth. 

“Good. Me and Mike are gonna need you at the shop next week. Think you’ll be up for it?” 

“Yes, Sir,” Dean said, straightening up in bed and trying to look professional, despite the worn Led Zeppelin shirt and the bedhead. 

“Good deal,” Dad said. “All right, you rest up.” 

It was six p.m. and Dean had been awake all of three or so hours. 

Sam clambered up the stairs a bit later, and invited himself into Dean’s room. He pulled up Dean’s desk chair and sat in it, spinning around. 

“I don’t think you’re really sick,” he said. 

“Oh yeah?” 

“Yeah. I think you just didn’t want to take me to the movies, and so you played sick. That’s pretty fucked up, Dean.” 

“Well, I think you’re being a dickhead. That’s pretty fucked up, Sam.” 

“You know, I really want to see that one movie that won all the awards at Sundance—” 

Dean made an involuntary grunt, the beginnings of a hearty protest, but Sam cut him off. 

“BUT! I know that would make you miserable and you would just want to make me miserable in return and it would be a vicious cycle of misery. So I’ll settle for the war movie that’s playing downtown.” 

“Good to know you’re not as dumb as you look,” Dean said. 

“Anyway,” Sam said, matter-of-factly. “Jessica’s going to see the Sundance movie with me.” 

“Oh yeah? Who’s Jessica?” 

“This girl in my class.” 

Dean settled in and listened to Sam extrapolate on all the wonders of this girl named Jessica. According to Sam, she was smart and pretty and funny and made good chocolate chip cookies. By the time he was done, Dean was ready to date the girl himself. He hoped she would live up to Sam’s version of her. He’d put gum in her hair if she was a bitch, he swore he would. 

***  
Dean didn’t want to go to the doctor, so he made it a point to get up at eight the next morning, even though it was a Saturday. He showered and went downstairs. Mom was already there, of course, drinking her second cup of coffee and doing a crossword. She smiled when she saw him.

“Feeling better?” 

“Yeah,” he said, pouring himself some coffee. 

He was okay, for the most part. The dreams were wearing him down. He’d had more throughout the night, and it was only sheer force of will that got him out of bed in the morning. He didn’t feel rested, rather felt like he had spent all night digging up a grave. Which, incidentally, was something he had dreamed about recently and it sucked far worse than anything he’d ever seen on TV or in a movie. See, there, it was a couple shots of the first few shovelfuls and then the next shot was the guys standing shoulder-deep in a perfectly rectangular hole. But in this dream, it took hours and he was drenched in sweat. He formed blisters, which he could feel, and his thumbs kept cramping up from holding the shovel. Sam was there too, of course, digging with him and talking his ear off about ghoul lore and it was at once disturbing enough to be interesting, yet mundane enough that his mind had wandered to a waitress he’d seen earlier. Maybe it was just Sam’s delivery. In any case, they got to the bottom and cracked open the rotting casket. They had lit up the bones of some poor soul who needed to move on, and that should have been strange, but he’d had enough of these dreams that it was almost dull. 

Sam got up a while later, while Dean was sitting there helping Mom with the crossword. He poured himself some orange juice and got in on the crossword puzzle action. They decided, amidst that, that they would go downtown to see the war movie. Dean was a little excited, and he was glad Sam wasn’t going to pick the weird movie, because it was sure to be nowhere near Dean’s alley. 

They went to the earliest afternoon showing, grabbing some burgers afterward. The movie had been okay. It was one of those movies that wasn’t like real life at all, with easily identified good guys and bad guys. The good guys won and the bad guys got smote. As it should be. The burgers were better, gotten from Dean’s favorite spot in town that had the crispiest, saltiest fries. 

“Who pissed in _your_ corn flakes?” Sam asked, throwing a burnt shard of fry at him. 

“No one,” Dean said, throwing it back. 

“That’s crap. You’ve been sitting here staring at your burger more than you’ve been eating it. It should be a distant memory by now.” 

“We’ve only been here like fifteen minutes.” 

Sam cocked his head and pursed his lips. “Exactly.” 

Dean sighed. He knew Sam was right. In the other life of his – a life he had absolutely lived at this point – this development would need to be discussed and analyzed and researched. They would most certainly need to figure it out. In the here and now, Dean couldn’t really figure what good it would do. 

“I’ve just been having some weird dreams, that’s all. It makes me tired.” 

“Come on, Dean. Dreams? What’s really going on?” 

The way he was looking at Dean, that little chicken foot furrow between his eyebrows and his eyes all soft, it was just like the other Sam. Empathy flowed off him like heat, and Dean didn’t know which was sadder – this life where he only needed to use it on stray dogs, or that other one, where he had to use it to comfort people when they were scared and being chased by boogiemen. 

“That’s it, man, I promise.” He wasn’t about to tell that fluffy little ball of innocence across the table from him about all this. “I haven’t been sleeping so good. Hey, have you talked to Jessica?” 

And Sam was off, talking about how he had seen her at the park one day with her friends and even though they giggled and did that scary teenage girl thing, she still shushed them and broke away to talk to Sam. To hear him tell it, this made her the kindest human being under the sun, which maybe she was. In any case, he let it distract him enough to eat his burger. 

***  
The dreams stopped a while, and Dean was able to get on with his actual life. 

He spent his mornings at the shop with Dad, doing the same kind of drudgework he expected. He’d never cleaned so much in his life. Spare parts, oil pans, tools, the shop floor, windows, the coffee pot. He’d never went out and fetched so many sandwiches. But he knew this was what Mike and Dad had done before they were the guys with their names on the sign out front. They’d definitely suffered worse humiliations in the Marine Corps. So Dean shut up and “Yes Sir’d” his way around and poured endless cups of coffee and fetched those sandwiches. He whistled jaunty little tunes while he washed the windows. 

After a few days, a tow truck came in with a burgundy Ford Taurus. Dean helped them get it into a spot in the garage and Mike went to talk to the owner of the car, quietly freaking out in the reception area. 

Dad raised the hood and handed Dean the key. “See if it runs.” 

Dean sat behind the wheel, put the key in, turned it. An asthmatic wheeze issued from the car and it wasn’t even trying to turn over. It was a monotone sort of sound, no effort on the part of the car, just a low whine. 

“What are you thinking?” Dad asked. 

“Timing belt.” 

“What do we need to do?” 

“Make sure no parts flew off into the engine when the belt snapped.” 

“Good man,” Dad said, handing him a socket wrench. “Let’s get to it.” 

***  
Dad paid Dean minimum wage and usually had him there about twenty hours a week. For a kid who didn’t need to pay rent or electric bills, buy groceries or toilet paper, it was a wealth beyond his imagining.

After his first paycheck – which Dad had written out from the small book they used at the shop – he took Dean down to the bank and opened up an actual bank account. Dean had nothing to drive him toward saving his money except for the thought of Dad’s wrath if he squandered it, which was more than enough. He didn’t have aspirations toward education after high school, other than maybe a mechanic program at the community college. He already had a car, and he didn’t even particularly want to leave Lawrence. The only thing he thought he might save up for would be a little road trip next summer, but even then he didn’t have any destination more exotic than California. 

This left him with what economists call “discretionary income.” 

His first order of business was to ask Anna Milton out on a proper date. She’d given him her phone number, and so far he hadn’t thought to use it, never once considering that this might have possibly left her with jangled nerves. 

He called one afternoon when he got back from the shop, and a gruff male voice answered. 

“Milton house.” 

“Hello, sir. Is Anna there?” 

His palms started to sweat. Mr. Milton sounded scary as hell. 

“She might be. Who is this?” 

“My name is Dean Winchester, sir. I’m a friend of hers from school.” 

The man grunted. “Winchester. Any relation to John?” 

“Yes, sir, he’s my dad.” 

Apparently satisfied that some grifter wasn’t asking for his daughter, he rumbled something that might have been, “Yeah hang on.” 

A minute later, Anna’s voice was on the other line, sweeping through Dean’s ears like a light breeze after a particularly nasty storm. “Dean Winchester. Nice of you to call.” 

She sounded mad. Why was she mad? He sat there in chastised silence, trying to figure it out, finally realizing that it probably had something to do with the fact that school had been out for two weeks already and he hadn’t even called to say hi. To her credit, she waited patiently on the other end of the line. 

“I’ve been kind of busy. Working in my dad’s shop,” he said. 

“I see,” she said. Her voice softened, but he knew she wasn’t going to let him off that easy. 

“And I was sick.”

“Whatever it was, I’m guessing it wouldn’t be transmitted through the telephone.” 

“No, but – but – I—”

She laughed. “I’m just giving you a hard time. I’m sorry you were sick. You feeling better?” 

“Right as rain, whatever the hell that means.” 

“So, are you calling to ask me to go to the movies or something?” 

“Yep.” 

“Good. That movie that won all the awards at Sundance is still playing over by the university.” 

Dean gritted his teeth and tried to smile. “Sounds great. When do you want to go?” 

***  
The most difficult part of asking Sam to ask Jessica to go with Dean and Anna to this movie was not the part where he had to admit that Sam had just mentioned the movie and Dean had been overcome with revulsion, whereas when Anna mentioned it he said yes without the barest hint of protest. No, that was not the most difficult part of the conversation. Rather, getting Sam calmed down from the belly laughs that overtook him was the hard part. 

Sam had been sitting in the living room, eyes glued to the TV, and Dean had come down after talking with Anna. He perfunctorily asked Sam what he was watching, and when told, his mind registered neither the name of the movie nor the visual aid on the screen. He got to the point quick enough, telling Sam about Anna, that she was the girl he made out with at Garth’s party. And then the punch line. 

Sam had started with a little twittering chuckle, a burble in his throat. Then it increased to actual laughter. Then he was laying on his back with his feet kicking in the air, clutching his stomach as he laughed at Dean, who sat patiently in the recliner, hands clasped together, arms draped between his knees. He blinked and stared at Sam, waiting for his brother to regain his composure. 

Five minutes later, he finally did, wiping tears from his eyes and muttering, “Yeah, yeah. I’ll call Jessica. Go work on Mom.” He chuckled helplessly a while longer. 

Mom didn’t need much working on. The thought of her boys going on a double date together left her practically misty-eyed with joy. 

The next night, they piled in the Dart. First stop was Anna’s house, and of course Mr. Milton called both Sam _and_ Dean into the house to grill them about the movie they were seeing, what they were planning on doing afterward, who else was going, Sam and Dean’s grades in school, whether or not they got into trouble, and their understanding of time, as it related to “no later than eleven p.m., not even by a minute, you hear me?” They answered with a “Yes, sir,” so robust that the floorboards shook. 

Anna stood in the background, witnessing all this with an amused smile lighting up her pale face. She wore a turquoise sundress that made her hair look like autumn leaves. It was outrageous and colorful and almost too joyful.

“Love you, Dad,” she said, kissing him on the cheek as she went out the door. He grumbled something in the low-register language of small town Midwesterners and Mrs. Milton came in with a mollifying bowl of ice cream and an admonition to hush and be grateful Anna had friends. 

Next stop was getting Jessica, who lived with her mom in an apartment on the border between the university area and the town. She was an adjunct professor at the college, and they had a cute little spot. She was less intimidating, sending Jessica off with a wave and not asking the rest of them to come inside for an interrogation. 

Finally they were on the road and headed to the small theater by the university. Jessica was funny and sweet, with wavy blond hair loose over her shoulders and spilling down her back. She had the biggest boobs Dean had ever seen on an eighth grader, and he felt a little bad sneaking glances at them in the rearview mirror. He couldn’t help it, though. They needed their own ZIP code. 

She and Anna chatted over the seat, Jessica asking all about high school and what honors and advanced classes were available for freshmen. Anna answered with earnest patience and the manner of kindness that older kids often couldn’t muster for the younger set. Dean saw another side to social standing in Anna, the kind not predicated on scheming or climbing or hurting anyone. It was a genuine patience and compassion for people, which was refreshing after years of watching the likes of Meg and Ruby step on the necks of anyone that got caught in their crosshairs. 

The movie turned out to be okay, though Dean still wouldn’t have picked it himself. It had one of those endings where it just closed on the main character’s face and the screen went dark and the credits rolled. He always thought that was a cop-out. 

Anna put her arm up on the armrest during the movie, and Dean knew that he was supposed to take her hand, so he did. He didn’t try to kiss her, though, because her face in the glowing light from the movie showed such rapt involvement that he would have felt bad taking her attention away from it. 

They went to Biggerson’s afterward for pie, which was Dean’s idea because if he couldn’t pick the movie he was compensating himself with pie, dammit. 

“I really liked it,” Anna said of the movie. 

“Yeah,” Jessica agreed. “The characters had layers. I like when they do that.” 

The only layers that concerned Dean were the stratification of soft piecrust, pie filling, and crispy top crust. 

Sam agreed with Jessica, of course, and then all eyes were on Dean. 

“Did you like the movie?” Anna asked. 

“Yeah, Dean,” Sam said with his patented subtle smirk, “did you like the movie?” 

“It wasn’t as good as this pie, but it was better than a poke with a sharp stick,” he said, which made the girls laugh and Sam nod appreciatively. 

It was near to eleven, and Mr. Milton had successfully put the fear of God into Dean, so he finished his pie and they hit the road. 

“My dad was just trying to scare you,” Anna said after they dropped Jessica off. 

“He did a great job.” 

She punched him gently on the shoulder. “He’s a good guy.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Dean said, “but I’ll be damned if I’m bringing you home late.” 

They pulled up to her house, and Sam got out so that he could get in the front seat when she left, and also give Dean a minute to kiss Anna good night. 

“Thanks for the movie. It was good hanging out with you. And Jessica will be good for Sam, I can tell,” she said. He nodded, trusting her word. “You’re a nice guy, Dean. You’re like from another time or something.” 

“Aw, shucks,” he said sarcastically. 

She pinched his ear and kissed him one more time for good measure. Outside, she hugged Sam and told him how much she had liked Jessica. 

“Thanks,” Sam said. “I like her too.” 

“Well, that’s good,” Anna said. 

Sam got in the passenger seat, but Dean didn’t start the car back up right away. He sat there a minute, watched Anna walk up to her house. She had such a cute little butt. 

Sam understood – maybe more about how much Dean liked her, rather than specifically how much he was thinking about her butt – and he waited patiently. Finally, Dean was ready and he started the car. 

“Did you really like the movie?” he asked Sam. 

“I did,” Sam said. “It’s okay to like movies like that and also war movies and shit.” 

“I know it’s okay,” Dean said. “I just don’t.” 

They drove through the few neighborhoods between Anna’s and their own. 

“Dean,” Sam said, looking out the window as they passed a park. His voice had the hurried edge of fear. 

Dean followed his gaze and saw what he was referring to: in the park, under the wash of the horrible orange lights, there was a figure slumped on a picnic table. It was sitting there, head resting on the table, arms dangling. At this distance, Dean couldn’t tell if it was alive or not. He drove closer and slowed down and then he realized – it wasn’t some random bum, but Castiel. 

“I know that kid,” he said, turning a U-ie and pulling into the parking lot. 

He was out of the car before he even knew what he was going to do. The passenger door creaked and Sam was out too, hurrying to catch up with Dean as he nearly ran over to Castiel. That boy was born into trouble. 

Dean shook him gently and he groaned, incoherent. His head lolled back and Dean gasped in unison with Sam. His face was beat all to hell. A gash under his eye had a smear of blood running from it, both nostrils had trails of blood, and there was a thin rivulet coming out of his mouth. 

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Sam said. 

“I doubt He had anything to do with this,” Dean said. “Come on, I know where he lives. We’re gonna get him home.” 

“Mom is going to be out of her mind—”

“I’ll drop you off first. You explain.” 

“Dean—”

“Shut up, Sammy. This is how it’s going down.” 

Castiel moaned and came to a little bit. “Dean? That you?” 

“It’s me, buddy. We’re going to take you home.” 

“Don’t bother.” 

“Hush.” 

They got him to his feet and he leaned on both of them. Dean wrapped his arm around Castiel’s waist. He could feel the other boy’s ribs and hips, the skin pulled tight over them. They managed to make it back to the car, Castiel dragging his feet and walking more on instinct than any sense of purpose. Dean opened the back seat, laid him down, pulled his feet up so he could close the door. Sam took off his hoodie and put it under Castiel’s head. Luckily it was dark brown, so potential blood stains wouldn’t be too obvious. 

“You really know this kid?” 

“Yeah,” Dean said, pulling back onto the street. “We’ve hung out a couple times.”

“You sure, um, I mean – well. You sure you should be hanging out with him?” 

“He’s not dangerous, dummy. He’s just . . . weird. And accident-prone.” 

“Hell of an accident,” Sam said, glancing into the back seat. 

Dean got Sam home and peeled out from the front of the house as soon as the passenger-side door was shut, before Sam could call any parental attention to what Dean was doing. En route, Castiel came to a little bit and started mumbling from the backseat. 

“Dean, you should have left me there.” 

“Fuck no.” 

“You’re a nice guy from a good family. Stick with what you know.” 

“What I know is that you need someone helping your ass out, because you don’t seem all that good at doing it yourself.” Dean kept an eye on him in the rearview mirror. He was wiping at his various injuries with the sleeve of his tattered flannel shirt. Stopped at a stoplight, Dean could see the slick track of tears down the side of Castiel’s face. Dean never really knew how he felt about dudes crying. Dad certainly never did. Sam had been a pretty weepy kid, the waterworks coming if a dog died in a movie or Mom and Dad had an argument or he got a B on a test. Dean himself had never been much for crying. He guessed it was okay, and this silent kind from Castiel was somehow more heartbreaking than anything he’d seen in a while. 

He got to Castiel’s house, and it was dark. 

“Come on, man,” Dean said, opening the rear door of the car. “Let’s go inside.” 

Castiel roused himself enough to be led out of the car and up the walk. He was unsteady and heavy, but Dean managed. 

“Keys?” he asked when they got to the porch. 

Castiel fumbled in his pocket, pulled out a key ring with three keys on it. Dean picked the one that looked most like a house key and opened the door. They stumbled through the house, turning on lights as they went. 

He got Castiel into the bathroom, turned on the light in there. Castiel’s face looked so much worse under the unforgiving light in the brilliantly white bathroom. Dean sat him down on the closed toilet lid, rummaged through the cabinets. He found some ancient-looking anti-bacterial spray and some cotton balls. There were threadbare washcloths, too, and he turned on the tap, waited for it to warm up. He wet the cloth. 

“This is going to sting like a sonofabitch.” 

“I know.” 

“Take a deep breath,” he said, and Castiel did. “Now let it out.” 

He put the cloth to Castiel’s face on the slow exhale, cut short by a wince. He wiped the blood off as gently as he could, avoiding the bigger cuts. The blood was gone, but in its wake were the evident bruises, already livid shades of magenta and gray-blue. Dean had a flash to his dreams, to scenes like this one. 

“Who did this to you, Cas?” 

“No one.” 

Dean held Castiel’s face between his hands, focused those deep blue eyes on his own. “Cas.” 

Castiel wrenched his head from Dean’s grasp and stared up at him, eyes searching Dean’s face. He was trying to decide something, maybe the safety level. Dean did his best to keep his expression soft, to make Castiel see that it was okay to tell what happened. He wasn’t going to waltz off and tell the first grown-up he saw. Dean knew – maybe by instinct, maybe from his dreams – that certain things needed to be handled without involvement from authorities. 

“What does every person on this planet want, whether they admit it or not?” 

“Cas, come on, man. Help me out here.” 

“Answer the question, Dean.” 

“I don’t know. I don’t know many people. I can’t say what anybody wants.” 

“Love. They want love. And some people – well. Some people don’t just _get_ it. It’s not handed to them. They have to go looking for it—”

“Is this about your dad? Is he in trouble?” 

“No. And these people who have to go looking for it, they have to go to some pretty bad places.” 

Dean was on the verge of a realization, of a true understanding, but his mind wasn’t ready to articulate what he knew to be true on some molecular level. He sat there, waited for Castiel to help him catch up.

“What’s one of the bigger rumors that you hear about me at school?” 

This flustered Dean. He had assumed that Castiel was blissfully unaware of most of what was said about him, that he just knew people didn’t like him. Dean wanted him to be beyond the world of rumors. 

“Come on, Dean. I know you know. You’re not as out of the loop as you’d like to pretend.” 

Dean cleared his throat. “The Russian spy one was pretty good.” 

“People say a lot of things about me, and there’s only one that happens to be true.”

Dean knew which one he was referring to. He swallowed hard, his throat tight and dry. It was somehow the biggest and the scariest, because it was so _real_ , so simple, so completely fucking inevitable. He’d never met a gay person before, as far as he knew. He had his suspicions about Mr. Alastair, but he doubted that was a good example. 

“I don’t care, Cas. I still want to be your friend. Who did this to you? I’ll kick his ass.” 

For a second, Dean thought Castiel was going to punch him. The other boy tensed up, narrowed his eyes. He clenched his fists in the loose material of his muddy jeans. Then he let go and Dean realized he was crying, the tears mingling with the blood that still oozed out of the cuts on his face. Castiel sort of slipped and slid off the toilet lid, almost crashing to the floor. Dean caught him, and he rested his head on Dean’s shoulder. It didn’t make Dean uncomfortable, exactly, but he couldn’t stop himself from feeling the itchy sense that it was weird. In any case, he let Castiel cry and get blood all over his shirt, which incidentally, was one of his nicer shirts because he had just been on a date with one of the prettiest girls in school. 

There were no rules on gay people in the Winchester house. Neither of his parents was particularly worldly, except Dad had been in the Marines, though Dean guessed there wasn’t a whole lot of good talk about gay people there. But Dad always championed fairness and justice, never stipulating that this group or that group didn’t deserve it. He wasn’t crazy religious, though Dean knew he kept a rosary in his work truck. Mom was the same way. 

Castiel had stopped crying, and Dean handed him the washcloth. He wiped his face, hissing as it hit the tender spots. 

“I won’t tell anyone.” 

“I know. I’ve never – there was no one for me to tell. The people who assumed or found out or whatever, they used it against me.” 

“How did people find out if you didn’t tell?” 

“There are places a person goes,” Castiel said, though Dean thought this was a really wild interpretation of the word _explanation._ “And sometimes, a person sees people there who would rather not be seen. And if a person does see them there, a person is in grave danger of getting his ass beat.” 

Dean so didn’t want to know. He didn’t want to know about a world where a person had to go lurking around in the dark just for some simple human contact, and where even that carried a risk. He knew that wasn’t some far-off place, but his own town, and still he wanted to pretend like it didn’t happen. Like if Castiel went to a party and saw a boy he liked that he could talk to that boy and kiss him, like Dean had done with Anna. Not that Dean wanted to think about dudes kissing. 

“Has this happened to you before?” 

Castiel nodded against him and sniffed. 

“I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault.” 

“Not yours, either, really.” 

“True, I guess.” 

“What are you going to do?” 

“I don’t know. I should say I’ll never go there again, but what am I supposed to do? I’m not going to college. I can’t even get a job for another year.” 

“Does your mom know?” 

Castiel laughed bitterly, the kind of sarcastic laughter that always made Dean’s bones feel cold. “Dean, my mom hasn’t been here in six months. She sends me money, and that’s about it. Last envelope was postmarked Denver, but the one before that was from Reno, so who the fuck knows.” 

Dean’s stomach bottomed out on him. His whole world was getting dismantled, piece by piece, in rapid succession. 

“Come stay with me. We have a guest room, and my mom would love another person to take care of,” Dean said. 

Castiel extracted himself from Dean’s grip and pulled himself up. He put his hands on Dean’s shoulders and held him in place, staring so intently at him that Dean felt little holes prickling in his skin. 

“You absolutely cannot tell your parents. You cannot tell anyone. Not your brother, not Anna Milton, not any single person. Do you understand me? I will get put into foster care if anyone finds out, and every day of my life will be this.” He gestured to his face, to his eye swelling shut and his split lip and the scrapes on his cheeks. 

Dean nodded, his face feeling hot and cold all at once. “I won’t tell.” 

“If you tell, I will kill you.” 

This was not an empty threat. Dean put his hands on Castiel’s shoulders, too, locked the two of them together. “I promise.” 

Castiel got up and cleaned up the bathroom. Tears still came intermittently, and he wiped at these with the back of his hand or the cuff of his shirt. 

“Thank you,” he said, his back turned to Dean. 

“You’re welcome.” Dean stood in the corner, hands in his pockets, not sure what to do with himself. “I need to go home. My parents—” He cleared his throat. “It’s really late.” 

Castiel nodded and turned to him. “I’ll – see you around, or whatever.” 

“Come for dinner sometime,” Dean said. “Just – I know you’ve been taking care of yourself, for the most part. But it might be nice to be around some people. I guarantee it’s better than sitting up at Biggerson’s all night. And my dad knows everyone. Maybe he can help you find a job.” 

“Dean—”

“Just shut up and come to my house for dinner. Jesus fucking Christ.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John questions his son about his new friend. Dean's relationship with Anna gets more hot and heavy -- and more complicated. After Castiel's revelation in the previous chapter, Dean tries to wrap his mind around what Castiel's life is like -- coming up with nothing. He tries to learn more and get some answers, but there are certain things he can never know. And the mysterious shadow makes another cameo . . .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My homage to S.E. Hinton. 
> 
> This chapter flirts with discussions of homophobia and alludes to not-exactly-above-board sex. To be clear, there is nothing explicit.

What Dean did not see when he exited Castiel’s house was the shadow that had been resting on his car, that slithered away when he opened the door. He was too focused on calming himself after this night of revelations in order to make it past his parents, who would surely be freaking the fuck out. The shadow passed into the night with the other shadows and Dean was none the wiser. 

He was right about his parents. When he pulled up to the house, the rest of the block was mostly dark, but every light in the Winchester house was on and as soon as he parked his car, the door flew open and Mom was there in her bathrobe with her hair pulled back in a messy ponytail. 

“I’m okay. Everything’s okay,” he said, even though it was pretty much a lie.

Dad was sitting on the couch in his pajama pants and a Jayhawks shirt, his arms crossed and a look on his face that said Dean better come up with an explanation double-quick. 

Dean slumped on the couch. 

“What happened? Sam said a friend of yours got in a fight. You didn’t jump in, did you?” Mom asked. Her forehead was creased with worry. 

“No, the fight was over by the time we got there. Sam saw him sitting in the park, and I took him home after I dropped Sam off. Sam didn’t need to see it.” 

“You could have put all three of yourselves in danger,” Dad said. 

“I know, and I’m sorry. But it was Castiel, that weird kid I was telling you about. I couldn’t leave him.” 

Dad nodded and grumbled something that might have been construed as agreement. 

“Did his parents call the police?” Mom asked. 

“I don’t know,” Dean said. “His mom wasn’t home. I just, um, helped him clean up, and then I left.” 

Mom sat on the arm of the recliner, by Dad. He put his arm around her absently, out of habit. 

“I’m glad you wanted to help this kid,” Dad said, “but don’t go messing around and getting yourself hurt.” 

“I know. I won’t.” 

“Give me that shirt,” Mom said. “I’ll need to soak it.” 

Dean looked down and it really registered that he was covered in this kid’s blood. He took the shirt off quickly and handed it to Mom, ran to the guest bathroom, and puked. It was pinkish brown from the coffee and pie.  
***

Dad didn’t say anything, but the next Monday, he let Dean change the oil on someone’s car, which Dean took to mean that he wasn’t in trouble and maybe Dad was a little proud of him or something. Dad took him home at lunch and stopped there for a while to have a sandwich. He made one for Dean, piling on the cheese, just the way Dean liked it. He braced himself.

“What’s the deal with this kid?” 

Dean shrugged. He didn’t need to ask what Dad was talking about. “Don’t know. He seems like he needs a friend.” 

“Why’d he get in a fight?” 

Dean looked down at his sandwich, picked off a crust and a little bit of cheese. He shrugged again, that cagey teenage boy shrug that is meant to hide all manner of indiscretions. Dad, of course, was privy to all of those as well as such a signature move, and he wasn’t about to let Dean get away with it, no how. 

“Dean,” he said in that warning voice like a gathering and sudden summer storm. 

“I don’t know the details.” 

“I have a hard time believing that. In fact, I don’t believe that. Not for a second.” 

Dean put his sandwich down and looked at his dad, at the stern, worried lines around his eyes and mouth, his eyes which were deep enough to be scary, like he was only asking Dean as a courtesy and he could really see the answers written on Dean’s insides. 

“He’s just . . . he’s different. I don’t know. He’s different and a lot of people push him around because of it.” 

“How is he different?” 

“Come on, Dad. Does it matter? What matters is that he needs someone to be nice to him for once in his crappy life.”

“Well, there’s different and then there’s different,” Dad said, crossing his arms. 

“Is there a worse kind of different I should know about?” 

“There are varying degrees, and some kinds of different are dangerous to be around. Some people think that if you’re hanging out with someone who’s different, that means you’re different, too, and some people don’t like people who are particular types of different, and then you’d be in danger.” 

Dean finished his sandwich and shepherded some crumbs around his plate. “It’s not like he has blue hair and a safety pin through his nose.” 

“Still,” Dad said, taking Dean’s plate, getting up, and putting it in the dishwasher with his own, “there’s a lot of folks out there who aren’t exceptionally nuanced on these kinds of things.” 

“But you trust me to do the right thing, don’t you?” Dean asked. 

Dad nodded slowly, gripped the edge of the counter, kept his back turned to Dean. “I do. And I trust you to do the smart thing.” 

Dean swallowed hard, his throat dry. He took a sip of water, put the glass down slow and quiet. He could not ask his father how nuanced his view of different people was. He could not bear to know if his father would think that Dean was gay for being friends with a gay person. He could not bear to think what Dad would do if he had a gay son.

“Well, I better get back to the shop,” Dad said. 

Dean wandered to the door behind him, locked it. He turned and saw Sam lurking in the corner of the living room. 

“Different how?” he whispered. 

“Come on, Sam,” Dean said, wandering over to the couch, sitting down, and taking off his boots. He stretched out on the couch and rubbed his eyes. 

“How is Castiel different?” 

“He’s just a weird kid, you know? Like, talks weird and acts weird and does a bunch of weird shit. And this ain’t – this town, I mean – it’s not some big city. We don’t do weird.”

Sam sat on the arm of the couch, by Dean’s feet. “My friend Ava at school, she’s weird. She says she wants to grow up and be a secretary. I don’t even think that secretaries are a thing anymore. I think they call them ‘administrative assistants.’ Anyway, she says that’s all she wants to be, but no one believes her and she’s just – weird.” 

“You’re pretty damn weird yourself.” 

“What kind of weird is Castiel?” 

“You’re the honor student in the family. You figure it out.” 

“Whatever, dude. I’m going over to Jessica’s.” 

Dean didn’t say anything. He laid back on the couch and listened for the sound of Sam dragging his bike down the porch steps.   
***

He took Anna out again a few nights later, just the two of them. There wasn’t a whole lot going on in Lawrence, to no one’s surprise. They ended up hanging out on a playground, sitting on the swings and talking as the sun sloped down to the horizon. The heat of summer was really starting to come in, the days hot and balmy, the evenings turning into a languorous haze. 

Anna was like firelight in the setting sun, her hair turning to an orange-red flame and her skin taking on the buttery yellow. Her hair was loose, and Dean couldn’t help but tuck a strand behind her ear when a breeze lifted it. She smiled and caught his hand in her own, held it to her. It felt awkward to him, his arm stretched out like that, but he kept it there for a long moment, acutely aware of how dirty his hands were. 

She smiled and turned her head, kissed his palm. “You almost make me want to stay in Lawrence, Dean.” 

He pulled away from her and dug his toe into the wood chips underfoot. “Where are you going?” 

“I don’t know yet. Somewhere else. Maybe Northern California or Colorado or Oregon or Timbuktu. I’m already looking at some colleges. I have a real chance for some of the better state ones,” she said. 

“But there’s a perfectly good college here.” 

She nodded. “Yeah, totally. Go Jayhawks. But what am I going to do, Dean? Live with my parents? Hang out with all the same people?”

“Would that be so bad?” 

She got up off the swing and stood over Dean, trapping his legs with hers. She put her hands on either side of his face and looked down at him with that crazy gorgeous hair cascading down her shoulders like molten steel. “Don’t take it personally.” 

“I’m not.” 

“Hmm, don’t know about that. Anyway, I’m here for another year. Let’s enjoy it.” 

He decided to see it less as an expiration date, and more like ample time to convince her not to go anywhere. 

She laughed and turned, ran off across the playground and over to the softball field. He followed after her, feeling that thrill he used to feel chasing girls around the playground in elementary school. It nudged at something primal inside him, something that had long been forgotten for the likes of Dean, for those hemmed in by highways and sidewalks and houses. 

He caught up with her and tackled her, his arms circling her thin waist, and she laughed again, shrieking with joy as he pulled her down onto the soft grass. She smiled almost shyly underneath him as he pinned her down, arms on either side of her head. She put her hands around his wrists and he dipped down, kissing her. He wanted her so bad, but he wouldn’t take it any further. He could hardly see for all the desire clouding his mind, but he pulled himself together and rolled off her. 

“I could get used to this. While it lasts,” he said, and if she noticed a cynical edge to his voice, she didn’t say anything. 

“Mmm,” she said. 

He thought of Castiel, how if he were here on a date with a guy, he wouldn’t have been able to do what Anna and Dean had just done. For that matter, going on a date in a park probably had a whole other world of meaning for Castiel than it did for Dean. He realized with a sharp pang of guilt that he had not done anything to check up on Castiel, wrapped up as he had been in his own life. 

He got up, holding his hand out to Anna. When she took it, he pulled her up and carried her over his shoulder, fireman-style, while she laughed and batted at his back and told him to put her down. He spun her a couple times and swatted her ass for good measure. 

“Oh my god. _Dean,_ ” she said when he set her down on the hood of the Dart. 

“I better get you home. I don’t want to take my chances with your dad,” he said, kissing her. 

“He really likes you, you know,” she said, getting into the car. 

“I’m glad. But I still don’t think he’d hesitate to skin me like a deer if I stepped one toe out of line,” Dean said, settling behind the wheel. 

Mr. Milton wasn’t standing on the front walk with a shotgun when Dean pulled up, which felt like a very real victory. Anna leaned in for one last kiss, which turned into a last kiss with tongue, which turned into a quick over-the-tank-top grope. He wanted to keep touching her forever, but he also wanted to live, and if her dad saw, “forever” would amount to about thirty seconds. 

She waved before turning to go into the house, and he honked the horn once, driving off. 

He had started to head to Castiel’s even before he realized what he was doing. He paused a moment on a side street, almost turning around at the nearest intersection, but he decided that he would go through with whatever he was going to do. 

There was one light on in Castiel’s house, a harsh yellow light shining in the living room. Dean parked in front and sat in the car a moment, staring at that light and the barely-obscured living room that it illuminated. Castiel was in there, visible through threadbare curtains, sitting on the couch, leaning forward over the coffee table. 

Dean took a deep breath and got out of the car, went up to the creaking chain link fence that surrounded the yellowed, dead yard. He lifted the latch and let himself in, replacing it quietly as he could. Up the front walk and to the house. He knocked on the door, even the wood feeling cheap and hollow and unsafe. 

Castiel answered and Dean gasped when he saw the other boy framed in a shaft of light. His face was mostly green and yellow now, with a few edges still blackish purple. His eye was open again, but it was still swollen. A couple of the scrapes on his cheeks had that crusted-over, yellowed look. Dean could never tell if those kinds of scabs were normal or infections. 

“Hi,” Dean said. 

Castiel just nodded and stood back from the door to let Dean in. He hadn’t noticed the living room before. It was kind of cozy, crammed with worn furniture. It had been recently vacuumed, the lines cutting through the cheap brown carpet. Castiel shut the door and went to the couch, shuffled the papers he had spread out over the chipped coffee table. 

“How are you?” Dean asked. 

“I’m okay,” he said, shrugging one shoulder. 

Dean sat in the rocking chair by the couch. It nearly slipped out from under his butt, and he caught it just in time. 

“Cas, come on. That was pretty bad. I can’t believe you’re okay after that.” 

“What do you want me to say, Dean? The guy who did it—” He shook his head. “Forget it.” 

“What? Is he going to hurt you again?” 

“Dean, you’re never going to understand any of this, so why should I explain?” 

“How the hell am I supposed to even try if you won’t tell me? I want to understand, even if it’s just in this, like, superficial way.” 

Castiel filed the papers away in a big accordion file and set it down next to the couch. He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and trained his blue laser eyes on Dean. 

“All right. What do you think you want to know?” 

“Where do you go?” 

“A park at the edge of town.”

“Is it just people from Lawrence?” 

Castiel shrugged. “Never did a census.” 

“How did you hear about it?” 

“Jokes in the halls at school. Scrawls on bathroom walls. Instinct, maybe a little.” 

“All guys your age?”

“No, some older ones.” 

“What are they like?” 

“Like anyone else, I guess. Normal.”

Dean wasn’t sure if that kind of desperation could legitimately be called “normal,” but he really didn’t know about any of it, so he shut his trap. 

“I have some questions for you,” Castiel said. 

“Okay.” 

“Why are you trying so hard to be friends with me?” 

“Why are you trying so fucking hard to resist it?” 

“I asked you first.” 

Dean sighed and sat back, rocked a little in the chair. The arms were worn and burnished with years of use, all varnish lost to the sands of time. “I think you’re interesting. I think that somewhere buried deep under all this shit you’ve been through, you’re probably crazy smart and funny.”

“Thanks, I guess.” 

“What’s it like?”

“What’s what like? Being a faggot?” 

“That is not the word I was going to use.” 

Castiel was quiet, leaning forward still. He rubbed his hands together, his long bony fingers, the palms scraping together like paper. _Shuh shuh_ , they seemed to say. 

“The funny thing is, it’s just regular to me. It’s just a thing about me. But it’s also _the_ thing about me. To a lot of people, I am most certainly going to burn in hell when I die. A lot of people, if they met me right now, they would say that. Or it’s something cutely weird, a quirk. I’m worth their time because of this. Or to some people, I’m disgusting because I’ve ‘chosen’ this. But to me, it’s a simple fact, like my height or hair color,” he said. 

Dean wondered what Dad would think of this assessment. 

“You have to do way worse things to get to Hell, I think,” Dean said. _Like bargain your very soul for the sake of your brother,_ he added in his head, remembering a particularly salient dream he’d had once. 

“I’m sure that will be a comfort in my final moments.” 

“How’s your face?” 

“It hurts,” Castiel said. 

“The guy who did it—”

Castiel held his hand up. “Don’t even try, Dean. He doesn’t matter. You don’t need to know about him.”

“He didn’t – I mean, beating you up like that is bad enough, but that was – the extent of it, right?” 

He nodded, eyes trained on the floor. “Yes, that was the extent of it.” 

A muscle tightened in Dean’s jaw, an involuntary response. “If anyone ever hurts you like that—” But he didn’t know where to begin or what to threaten. To kick their ass? Call the police? Tell his dad? 

“I can defend myself, you know.” 

“Yeah, but it seems like it might do you some good to take a break from that.” 

Castiel looked tired, from the inside out. Underneath the bruises and cuts there was a deep weariness that wouldn’t fade with those. He hadn’t been taken care of in a long time.

“So what’s in there?” He pointed to the accordion file. “What are you working on?” 

“Just . . . some crap to keep my mind occupied.” 

“Stuff to do with your dad?” 

Castiel hesitated, jiggled his knee, looked at the accordion file as if asking it whether it wanted to be discussed. “Yeah.”

“Find anything good?” 

“No.”

Dean raised his eyebrows in the international sign of _Yeah, sure, okay, whatever, buddy_. He wondered what Castiel’s search really amounted to, if it was only a distraction, like Anna said. 

Dean switched the subject to stupid things. He talked about people who came into the shop, what they were like. There were the nervous ones, who talked to the mechanics like they might talk to cops – with that mixture of reverence and fear that came from a profession having a reputation that preceded it. There were the suspicious ones, sure that they were getting fleeced somehow. There were the people who tried to understand how their cars worked, and how they inevitably failed. There was that stereotype of the dumb mechanic, and sure, Dean probably couldn’t tell you what Plato or Socrates said on any given subject, but he could take apart an engine and put it back together better than it had been before. 

Castiel sat back and listened, laughed at the right times, nodded at others. He didn’t say much, and that was okay with Dean, even though Dean was curious as to what he thought about things, not just the trifles Dean was blathering on about, but anything really. Still, Dean didn’t want to push him. He was still that injured little dog pawing at blackberries.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean invites Cas over for dinner. Cas reveals some shocking theories on what he thinks happened to his father -- which hits too close to some of Dean's recent dreams. How will the Winchesters react to Cas? How will he react to them? More and more, Dean learns that not every family is like his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading. These middle chapters were really hard to write, as some of the material hit pretty close to home for me, and I thought about some of the interactions I had with people when I was in high school.

Dean made good on his offer to invite Castiel to dinner. He bypassed Dad and mentioned it to Mom one afternoon when he was home from work. She was reading a book for her book club, sitting on the couch in a rare inert moment. He spun it as best he could, telling her about how Castiel’s dad was AWOL and his mom was in Denver on business (technically true, as far as Dean knew). She had tutted in sympathy, for in her estimation, even a fifteen-year-old boy still needed taking care of and shouldn’t be left on his own overnight. Dean thought about how the truth would break her simple heart. He hoped she never learned it. 

“Of course, yes, bring him over this Sunday. I’ll cook a roast,” she said, the gears already working in her head. 

Dean floated this idea to Castiel gently, going over to his house for a bit that afternoon. He brought a deck of cards, determined to teach Castiel how to play poker. They ended up playing gin rummy. Castiel’s bruises had faded for the most part. There was a sickly sheen about him, and there were still cuts too bright to be called scars, but he looked passable enough.

“So, like, remember how I invited you for dinner, kind of?” 

Castiel bristled at the memory, and Dean could have just kicked himself for bringing it up. He put a card down carefully. “Yes.”

“I asked my mom about it, and she’d love it if you came over on Sunday.”

“You don’t have to invite me over.” 

“I know. But it might be fun. My mom’s a good cook, and my brother is a big dork, and my dad mumbles jokes every now and then,” Dean said. 

Castiel put his cards down and stood up. He paced around the living room and rubbed his eyes, then put his hands in his pockets, then crossed his arms. “I don’t know, Dean.” 

“Okay, if you have other plans,” he said, stung a little, knowing full well that Castiel didn’t have any plans. 

Castiel sat himself back down and leveled a look at him that could have toppled a building. “It’s too risky for me to be around adults any more than I have to. If anyone finds out that I’m here on my own, that’s it. I’m in the system.” 

“So don’t tell anyone. Look, my folks won’t ask too many questions. My mom might wonder, but only because she’s got a soft spot. No one’s going to run off and call the county.”

“They’ll figure it out quick enough.” 

He tossed his cards down and threw his hands in the air. “Cas, it’s dinner. One night. Three hours, tops. I won’t tell and you won’t tell. Just come over, eat some damn post roast, and hang out.” 

“Maybe,” Cas said. “I’ll let you know.” 

The card game was over, the cards all jumbled in a pile, and Dean gathered them up, nodded. It was such a simple thing, going over to a friend’s house for dinner. Jo had done it when she lived in town. Ruby had come over quite a bit before she turned into evil personified. Cassie came over when they were dating. Sam brought his little weirdo brigade through. Dean had gone over to people’s houses before. But that had been so laughably different, as if from another time and place than what Castiel had going on.  
***  
He called the next night, told Dean he would come over. Dean hung up feeling like finally he had a summer worth remembering.

***

He hadn’t yet invited Anna over to meet his folks, and there was a niggling voice in the back of his mind that told him he ought not mention that he had invited Castiel. Instead he took her to a movie on Friday night and drove out to the edge of town, where teenagers went to be alone, and they had sex in the back of the Dart. 

Dean had done it before, of course, but it had been longer than he would have liked to contemplate. Still, it wasn’t something a person ever forgot, and he eased into it, his body remembering what to do and his brain working all the way with him to constantly remind himself that he was so much bigger than her and she was bordering on frail. It was sweet and not too awkward. She later confessed it was not her first time, and he felt an unexpected pang of jealousy at that. He wanted to ask who she had done it with before, but he refrained, knowing that the answer would do him no good and he was being stupid for even caring. 

She burrowed up to him in the backseat, her panties being the only article of clothing she recovered from the fray. He himself had managed to get his boxer-briefs and his t-shirt back on. He had never even managed to take his socks off, and now his feet were sweaty, but he would not move. 

“I’ve been waiting for that a while,” she said. 

“Yeah, me too.” 

“Bet you have.” 

She fell asleep on him, her hand over his heart. He let her rest a moment, only waking her when she started to drool. 

He drove her home and kissed her one last time before watching her get out of his car and up the front walk. She turned to wave before going into the house, and her face was cornflower blue in the moonlight. _America_ , he thought, her red hair and white shirt and blue jeans. 

Mom and Dad had gone out for the night – a date night of their own, and if Dad got lucky like Dean did, he sure as hell didn’t want to think about it. Sam was in the living room when Dean got back, watching a movie, a decimated bowl of popcorn and an empty soda bottle on the floor next to him. Dean went upstairs, brushed his teeth and put on his rattiest t-shirt and his oldest shorts, went back downstairs and watched the movie with Sam. It was stupid and pointless, but Dean found himself wanting to spend time with his brother. In those dreams he had, they were always together and always mad at each other, but every interaction was shot through with this notion that to be separated was to be in peril. He didn’t get that sense in his waking life. His relationship with Sam was utilitarian, functional. In any case, Sam didn’t mind him watching the movie, even if he did keep up a running commentary about how no one would ever do that and that character should have died five times over by now. 

He fell asleep with the memory of Anna swirling around his mind, and it was beautiful. He even dreamed about it, only they were older and they were in the Impala. He tried to tell himself it wasn’t a glimpse of that other life that existed for him only in his dreams, but he knew better, deep down, even if he didn’t let himself really think it.   
***

Sunday rolled around with Dad saying at breakfast that he was going out to Topeka for a salvage auction and Mom telling him to be back by dinner because Dean’s friend Castiel was coming. 

He shot a look at Dean across the table, and Dean felt his bacon and eggs go lumpy in his stomach. Nevertheless, he met Dad’s gaze head on and dared him to say no in front of Mom and Sam during Sunday breakfast. 

“I look forward to meeting this Castiel kid. I’ve heard so much about him,” Dad said pointedly. 

“Well, you’ll have to clue me in,” Mom said. “I know nothing about this boy.” 

“He’s nice,” Dean said. “You’ll love him.” 

Sam stayed quiet, cornering Dean when he was going back up to his room to get dressed. 

“That night we found him – that wasn’t some random ass-kicking, was it?” His eyes were so earnest, and it took Dean a moment to realize that they were on level with his own. Sometime in the middle of the night, it seemed, his baby brother was suddenly tall. 

“No,” Dean admitted. 

“Is he in trouble?” 

“Not at the moment,” Dean said, thinking about the fact that Castiel’s baseline for trouble was probably considerably higher than either of the Winchester boys’, who tended to keep a low profile. 

“Why’d he get beat up, Dean?” 

“He’s just this weird kid, and people pick on him. Jesus, Sam, why do you even give a rat’s ass?” 

“I don’t know. I just do.” 

“All you need to know is the guy is weird but nice and he’s coming over for dinner.” 

“Is that _all_ I need to know, Dean?” 

Dean punched Sam’s shoulder, hard enough to make him wince, even though he shook it off quick enough. “Yes, that is all you need to know.”

Sam glared at him and turned to go to his own room, but then he heaved a sigh and turned back around. Dean was still standing there, caught in the headlights. 

He went back to Dean and put his hand on Dean’s shoulder. “Look, I – I really do care. I mean, if there’s anything you need to tell me, I’ll listen. I won’t just run right to Mom and Dad. If you need to talk.” 

Dean nodded. “It’s pretty complicated, Sammy. Let’s leave it like this: The kid hasn’t had a lot of people around to be nice to him, and he’s not used to it. He’s just different, that’s all you need to know. You don’t need to know why or how, all right?” 

Sam nodded. They both knew that Sam knew exactly what the deal was, but neither of them was about to acknowledge it. And really, that was the order of things. 

Dean was antsy the whole day, occupying himself with changing the oil in the Dart and helping Mom cut potatoes. He mowed the lawn without being asked and Mom narrowed her eyes but said nothing.

He went over to Castiel’s way early. There was a part of him that felt grown-up over the fact that he had a friend who lived alone without parents. He knew the situation was terrible, knew that there was no good way to slice any of it, but damn if it didn’t thrill him a little. He’d die before admitting it, but he thought it all the same. 

Castiel was jittery and wearing what must have been his one nice outfit, though Dean knew that would never pass for nice in his own house. Mom made Dean and Sam get a new white dress shirt and black slacks every year, accompanied by a tie – the only thing whose color they got to choose. Sammy always got blue and Dean always got red. Castiel’s nice outfit amounted to a pair of worn but well-kept Wrangler jeans and a black button-down that was a little too short in the sleeves, but fit him well enough. It was a damn sight better than the lumpy clothes he normally wore, the mishmash of things that looked like he’d stolen them off scarecrows. 

“You look nice,” Dean said and Castiel rolled his eyes. 

“Thanks.” 

“My mom is probably still cooking, so we’ll want to hang out a while. She gets crazy when she cooks.” 

He instantly regretted this, and any other petty gripe he’d ever had about his family. The darkness that passed over Castiel’s face told him that he would have loved nothing more than a mom who got crazy when she cooked, a dad who mumbled jokes. His mom was just crazy, probably. 

“We can hang out here,” Castiel said. “That’s fine.” 

They settled in the living room on opposite ends of the couch. The coffee table was strewn with Castiel’s ongoing project. The collection had grown from maps and news stories to county records and photocopied pages from old books. There were weird, ancient pictures on these pages, things Dean had only seen poorly represented in horror films. They looked so much worse here, rendered in grainy ink. They were somehow more real and terrifying this way, like mug shots hanging up at the post office. 

A firelight of satisfaction kindled itself in Dean’s chest when he saw these. Castiel had taken to leaving this stuff out when Dean came over, rather than locking it away in its bulging accordion file. 

“What’s your theory on this?” Dean asked, tapping his finger on one of the pages. 

“You’ll think I’m crazy,” Castiel said. 

“I already think you’re a little crazy,” Dean said. 

Castiel’s face flashed with a scowl of anger, then went back to normal. “A joke. I am assuming.” 

“You’ll get the hang of those someday,” Dean said, clapping him on the shoulder and sifting through the papers. 

Castiel reached for a yellow legal pad covered in scrawling writing. “My working theory is that he was possessed by a demon and the demon led him away from my family.” 

Dean nodded, even as his vision swam and his guts clenched together. Demons. The world of his dreams, his other life. Castiel helped him and Sam hunt them there, exorcising them and trapping them and watching their inky black shadows pour out of them like dirty, oily smoke. 

Their shadows. 

Like the one he had seen following Castiel and at the shop. 

He sat on the other end of the couch, ran his hand through his hair. “We might be crazy together, then, because I think I believe you.” 

Castiel searched his face, scrutinized him hard for any trace of facetiousness or joking or unkindness. Finally discerning, through Dean’s steady gaze and his set mouth, that there was none, he said, “Thank you. It means a lot to me.” 

Dean merely nodded. 

“I don’t want to push my luck or anything, but can I ask why?” Castiel asked.

“You ever just know something is true?”

“Yeah.” 

“It’s like that.” 

Castiel nodded, mollified enough to accept this answer. “What do you think we do, then?” 

“I don’t know,” Dean lied, even though a game plan was already clicking into place inside his head. They’d need to talk to the people who last saw him, see if he was acting funny. They’d have to discern his state of mind, if he was in some kind of hysteria and therefore susceptible to possession. They would then try to retrace his steps, see where he might have ended up, what might have happened to his body. “I think you’re off to a good start.” 

That part was true enough, for Castiel had a slew of maps and hypotheses scribbled on them, highlighted routes and end points. If there was a key of what the checks and x’s and question marks there were to mean, it existed solely in Castiel’s head. Still, Dean couldn’t help but feel that his other self would be proud of his weird friend for drawing conclusions so close to the mark. 

He read some of the news reports that Castiel had there. Some were clippings, some had been photocopied. He looked at the grainy pages from old books, the typesetting occasionally drifting upward or down, words getting squished together. Black eyeballs and inky smoke, pentagrams and squiggly sigils – all the tools of the trade that existed somewhere in the world, that Dean had glimpsed in sleep. 

Something told him that Castiel would have been so good at whatever it was that Dean and Sam did through the looking glass. They had a Castiel there, too, of course and he was an even stranger bird than this one. But the Castiel here, the one sitting on the other end of the couch and poring over a highlighted and scribbled on map, he could have done just as well there. 

Dean cleared his throat. “Come on, my mom’s probably over the worst of it. I should go set the table.”

Castiel nodded, grabbed his keys and wallet sitting in a little wooden dish by the door. 

When they arrived, the Winchester household was in an impressive state of happy chaos. Dad was back from Topeka and was lugging a greasy box full to the brim of salvage parts out of his truck. Mom was yelling from the doorway, “Leave it, John, for God’s sake. You’re going to pull out your back. Wait for Dean!” 

Sam rushed to the door. “Mom, something’s beeping.” 

“Go turn it off, then, good lord!” Mom said, snapping him with a dishtowel. He slunk back into the house like a kicked dog. 

Dean and Castiel got out of the Dart amidst this whole scene, Castiel watching in wide-eyed and terror-filled amusement. 

“Dean, help your father with this thing or we’ll be eating dinner at the hospital.” 

“Dammit, Mary, I’m not that old and decrepit. Though you might single-handedly be forcing me into an early grave.” He grunted and pulled at the box; it budged not even an inch. 

Dean rushed over and climbed up in the bed of the truck, pushing the box on its stained tarp. 

“You must be Castiel,” Mom said, waving the other boy over. “Come inside and leave these two to this foolishness.” 

“Thank you, Mrs. Winchester.” 

“Mrs. Winchester,” Mom crowed. “Call me Mary, kiddo.” 

She ushered Castiel inside, dazed as he was by this whole scene, and poked her head back out into the garage. “Wash your hands before you get inside, and wash them again in the kitchen. That thing brings new meaning to the word _filthy._ ”

“He looks normal enough,” Dad grunted as he leveraged the box on his forearms. 

Dean hopped off the truck and took the other end of the box. They teetered into the garage, stowing it close to Dad’s workbench. He put up the tailgate and went to the sink, gray with the memory of other boxes moved and greasy hunks of metal worked on. He scrubbed his hand with the harsh, fragrant soap that always stayed on the lip of the sink. 

“What were you expecting?” he said. “Some kind of patch?” 

Dad _hmphed_ in response and washed his hands as well. 

Inside, Mom had put Castiel to work setting out plates, and Dean had never seen a person look so happy doing something so menial. He set each plate down and centered it on the placemats. Dean swallowed hard and washed his hands again, got the silverware, trailed Castiel in a circle around the table, setting out forks and knives. 

Sam came down and lurked in the entryway of the dining room. His jeans were just a hair too short for him, Dean noticed, the ankles of his black socks showing. He watched Castiel a minute, clocking his movements with his eyes. 

“I’m Sam,” he said, finally, coming up with his hand out. 

Castiel shook Sam’s hand, nodded. “I know. I’m Castiel.” 

“I figured. My loser brother only has one friend,” he said, punching Dean in the shoulder and laughing. He got serious and asked, “How are you?” 

Castiel nodded. “I’m okay. I’m – thank you for . . . yeah. I’m okay.” 

Sam nodded, got that look in his eye like he was absorbing all the pain Castiel felt and was experiencing it himself. He went into the kitchen, came back a minute later with a steaming dish of potatoes and parsnips. 

Dad came in, himself carrying a pitcher of iced tea and stacked glasses, followed by Mom carrying the roast beef on a platter. It was surrounded by carrots and onions and the pulpy remains of canned tomatoes – her “secret” ingredient. 

They settled in their usual places, Castiel squished next to Dean on an extra mismatched chair brought up from the basement.

“So, Dean tells me your mom is in Denver on business,” Mom said. 

Castiel sucked in a breath, nearly dropping the potato he was dishing up, but nodded and said, “Yes, ma’am – Mrs. Win – Mary.” 

“Have her call me when she gets back into town,” Mom said, passing the roast beef to Dad. “Maybe next time you can stay here. I don’t want to interfere with whatever arrangements you have in place now.” 

Dad shot Dean a look that could have frozen steam. “Now, Mary, don’t go meddling. Sounds like they have their system.” 

Dean didn’t need a translator to figure that one out, and it chafed him. It wasn’t like kids with chicken pox. Castiel wouldn’t make Dean gay by spending the night, and he was a little miffed at Dad that he thought Dean would be friends with someone who’d force the issue, or that Dean wouldn’t be able to deflect an unwanted advance. 

“I’ll – I’ll do that,” Castiel said, smiling like it hurt. 

Dean couldn’t look at him like that, at the sadness seeping from every pore. He saw it all in Castiel’s eyes – that longing of possibility. 

“What grade are you in?” Sam asked. 

“I’ll be a sophomore,” Castiel said, brightening a little. “You’re going to be a freshman, right?” 

Sam nodded. “Yeah.”

“Don’t be nervous,” Castiel said. “It’s pretty good, as far as school goes. And your brother will be there for you.” 

“Yeah, right.” 

“No, really. He saved my butt once, and I didn’t even know him then,” he said. 

Sam shot Dean a look, one eyebrow up.

“What, um, what classes are you taking?” Dad asked, trying and failing not to be awkward. 

“All the usual ones. Advanced English next year. French.”

“Dean took auto shop,” Dad said, almost proud. 

“I’ll stick with electives that don’t involve moving parts, thanks,” Castiel said. “But I’m guessing Dean’s pretty good with cars. The Dart runs very well. What year is it?” 

“It’s a seventy-two. You know, I really think they heyday of American cars ended around sixty-eight, but that’s a good little workhorse. Gonna need to find one for Sammy pretty soon,” he said, nodding at his younger son. 

“I want a Mustang,” Sam said. 

“Not under my roof,” Dad said. “That’s a car for—” He paused, and Dean knew just what kind of person a Mustang was for. Dad cleared his throat. “For someone who doesn’t know a damn thing about cars.” 

Nice save, Papa Winchester. 

Mom asked him what his mother did for a living, and he answered that she was a sales consultant without batting one long eyelash. Mom went on to grill him about everything from his favorite books to his neighborhood to his college plans. He answered every single question, happy to be asked. Dean’s chest squeezed tighter with every volley, hating himself for every moment he’d thought his mom was too overbearing or into his business. 

After dinner, Sam and Mom cleared the plates while Dean got out the ice cream selection and some bowls. They always had at least three or four half-gallon cartons going at any given time, a baseline of vanilla and chocolate with outliers like mint chocolate chip or brownie caramel swirl, if Dad did any of the shopping. 

It left Castiel alone with Dad, which worried Dean, but he figured Castiel could ward off a few veiled insults if needed. Though they were talking Jayhawks football when Dean came back in, nearly causing him to die of surprise. 

They didn’t really do this often, this whole big Sunday dinner thing. They ate together most nights, unless there was some after-school thing or unless Dad was working late. He took it for granted, he knew that now. He expected that eating with his family was a given, that it was something everyone did most nights. He wondered what Castiel did when he was on his own – or what things were like if his mom was around. 

Mom started to clean up and Dean slunk into the kitchen after her. 

“Hey, maybe there’s some leftovers?” 

“Geez, kid, are you hungry again already?” 

“No, no. I’m – wow, I probably won’t be hungry until like Tuesday. I was thinking, um, Cas might want to take some home. For sandwiches or something. I’ll make sure he gets your Tupperware back to you,” he said, standing in the doorway, fiddling with the fraying edge of a dishtowel. 

Good old Mom, she didn’t miss a thing, of course. She furrowed her eyebrows together, that little imprint between her eyes that deepened as the years went on. There was a flash in his mind from his dreams, from missing her so bad that he felt the metallic tang that usually heralded a puking session. 

“He’s got enough to eat over there, doesn’t he?” 

“Yeah, yeah. I just – you know. Who doesn’t like leftover roast beef sandwiches?” he said, trying to smile. 

“Dean,” she said, dragging the E out as a warning. 

“Mom,” he said, rolling his eyes. 

She went over to him and reached up to take his face in her hands, get him to look at her. It had been much more effective when he was shorter than her. She’d gotten him to confess to all manner of shenanigans that way. As it was, though, he pulled out of her grip and busied himself finding a couple Tupperware containers. 

“Is there something you need to tell me about this situation?” 

“No, Mom, geez. I was trying to be nice, and here you are, thwarting me.” 

“Dean, if this boy—”

The shuffle of feet and Castiel was there, looking ready to run if he needed to. Mom brightened up and went over to him, put her hands on his arms and held him out to look closely at him, presumably for signs of malnutrition. 

“What do you need, kiddo?” she asked in her best mom voice. 

“Nothing – I just – I should probably head home. I know Dean has work tomorrow morning.” 

“It’s no problem. It’s not that late,” Dean said, half his body in the Tupperware cupboard so Castiel didn’t see him blushing and Mom didn’t see his hands shaking. 

“Still . . .”

“Yeah, okay,” he said, emerging and busying himself with loading some leftovers in the containers. Of course there was enough for Castiel and all four Winchesters to have extra. They had so much food, they had so much stuff, so much everything. 

“Thank you again,” Castiel said. Dean caught him out of the corner of his eye, leaning in to Mary. 

“No problem at all,” Mary said, and she actually pulled him in for a hug. 

Castiel stood there a moment with his arms limp, but then he pulled her close and hugged her back. Dean snapped the lid on the Tupperware and swallowed hard. 

“I guess we’ll head out.” He gave Mom a quick kiss on the cheek. “I might hang out a bit, if that’s okay.” 

“Sure thing,” she said. 

He handed Castiel the Tupperware containers and went out to the foyer to put his shoes on. 

“Where are you going?” Dad asked from his armchair. 

“Taking Cas home,” Dean said. 

“Well, don’t be too long,” Dad rumbled. “It’s getting late.” 

“Yeah, Dad. It’s nearly eight-thirty on a summer night. I’m really burning the midnight oil.” 

“Shop opens at seven, no exceptions.” 

They walked out into the sticky night air, heat and humidity lingering. Dean wondered what dry heat was like, if he’d ever see California. 

“Does your father know? About me?” Castiel asked in the safety of the car. 

“Know about you?” 

“Being – being gay.” 

Dean started the engine, pulled away onto the street. The sun was getting closer to setting, the blue turning to dusky gray. He cleared his throat. 

“I think he gets it. I didn’t tell him.” 

Castiel nodded. “He seems nice.” 

“He is.” 

He turned up his Zeppelin tape, letting the screaming guitars and unholy moaning drown out any further questions. Castiel reached over and turned the radio off. Dean looked at him in surprise and nearly ran a red light.

“Thank you for inviting me over,” Castiel said, so earnest, like a dog that has to pee and can’t find the door. 

“Anytime,” Dean said. “Hell, invite yourself sometime. My mom won’t mind. And I mean, if you did need to stay with us—”

“We’ve been over this, Dean.” 

“Yeah, I know,” he said, waving his hand. “But come on, you must get lonely over there sometimes.” 

Castiel swallowed hard and Dean saw he’d hit a particularly tender mark. 

“Would you really want to hang out a little tonight?” he asked when they pulled up to his house.

“Of course,” Dean said.

They sat around a while, talking about nothing, about movies they’d seen and people they had known. Castiel talked a little about leads on his dad, about behaviors of demons he had read about. 

Before he knew it, it was ten o’clock. Dad would be grumpy if he was out much longer, so he got up. 

“See you around?” Dean asked. 

“Yeah.” 

Castiel stood, too, followed Dean to the door. Dean paused a moment with his fingers grazing the handle, half-turned to Castiel. He smelled that cheap detergent, the fake perfumes and harsh chemicals. He reached out and pulled Castiel close, hugged him tight. Like earlier with Mom, Castiel stood there a second with his arms at his sides, but then he reached up and wrapped his arms around Dean. 

“I thought you said no chick flick moments,” Castiel mumbled into Dean’s shoulder. 

“I’m making an exception. Don’t tell, okay?” 

“Your secret’s safe with me.” 

Dean pulled away, still held onto Castiel’s shoulder. For a moment, just a moment, he did look at guys like that, and he looked at Castiel like that. He noticed the brooding eyes and the cheekbones that could cut glass, his long nose and plush lips. His friend was _beautiful_ , in a way he had never realized or considered. There was this light shining out of him. 

“Dean.” 

“Cas,” he said, matching the warning tone. 

“Don’t look at me like that,” he whispered. “It’s never a good thing when straight boys look at me like that.” 

“How was I looking at you?” His throat was dry and his palms were sweating. 

“What’d I tell you about playing stupid, Dean?” 

He averted his eyes, stared down at his shoes, put his hands in his pocket. “I’m sorry. And I’m sorry I was looking at you like that.”

“Good night,” Castiel said, reaching past him and opening up the door. 

“’Night.” 

Dean stumbled back to the car, dropped his keys, fumbled with the lock, fumbled with the ignition. He drove off and got about two blocks before parking in front of a dark house and letting the shakes really overtake him. He’d never even come close to that in his life, had never looked at a guy and felt that pull. 

What would he even have done if Castiel had kissed him? Or if he had tried to kiss Castiel? He didn’t know, and that scared him even worse, because he didn’t want to be the kind of asshole who did things like that and then freaked out. That got people beat up, and Castiel had had enough of that lately, Dean knew. He drove off back home, put on something loud and indistinct to clear his mind, driving through the quiet small-town streets as a blast of chainsaw noise in the middle of the night.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It all comes to a head on the Fourth of July. Anna and Cas hang out for the first time since middle school. People start to call Dean's relationship with Cas into question. Dean starts to get some questions about this other world he's been dreaming about -- along with an unexpected visitor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Buckle up, kids. It's a wild ride from here on out. 
> 
> If you like it, please tell a friend, tap the kudos button, leave a comment. That's the dogecoin in these here parts.

It was almost Fourth of July, which was no small deal in the Winchester household. They hosted a barbecue, one of the bigger ones in the neighborhood, and it was endless hours of eating and talking and then fireworks. Mom made Dean stay home from work two days before the event, cleaning and mowing and making sure the grill wouldn’t blow up. Dean thought Dad would object, but when Mom floated this idea to him, he just nodded and agreed that it would be best. Things were slow at the shop anyway. Dean knew better than to object. 

“How’s Castiel?” Sam asked as they were cleaning out the garage, straightening huge plastic tubs of crap. 

Dean shrugged and dusted off his hands, regretting the extra thump he got in his heart when Sam said Castiel’s name. “Good, I would guess. Haven’t heard otherwise.” 

“You should invite him to the barbecue.” 

That was the truth, but he also wanted to invite Anna. “Yeah, maybe. I’ll see what Anna says.” 

“Well, if you don’t do it, I will.” 

“Hold on there, big man. Anna and Cas used to be friends, and I don’t wanna go stirring the pot, not where my girlfriend is concerned.” 

“Anna’s your girlfriend?” Sam asked with a raise of the eyebrows. 

“Yeah, dummy. Get with the program.” 

Sam shrugged. “I didn’t know it was a girlfriend thing. Thought it might be a fooling around thing.” 

That was a distinction that only his slightly pussified little brother could come up with.  
***

He got a reprieve from the chain gang later that afternoon, slipping away and going to her house. They sat on the front porch in the weathered porch swing. It was so hot out, and Dean was already sweltering from cleaning out the garage. But still, Anna was there in a pristine little sundress, and he wouldn’t have suggested going inside, not with her sitting there looking like she just stepped out of a painting. 

“You gonna be able to come to the big barbecue?” 

She nodded. “I should.”

He cleared his throat and took her hand, turned it over and traced the lines in her palm. “I had kind of wanted to invite Castiel. We’ve been hanging out a lot, and I thought it might be nice. But I know you guys used to be friends, so I wanted to ask if it was okay.” 

She clenched her jaw. “You’ve been hanging out with Castiel?” 

“Yeah, on occasion.” 

“Hm. Well. I guess if you want to invite him, that’s okay. I don’t dislike him.”

“What happened between you two?” Dean asked. 

She forced a smile, but her eyes were shining. “Oh, nothing. Just – you know how he is. Stubborn and secretive. It got to me after a while.” 

“True enough,” he said. 

She burrowed close to him, under his arm, and he held her as tight as the hot weather would allow. He could feel her bones shifting under her skin, the prominent shoulder blades and her spine and ribs. 

If he thought she was holding him too tight, her fingers twining too desperately in his t-shirt, he didn’t mention it.   
***

The biggest upside to the whole massive Fourth of July barbecue was not Mom’s potato salad, though that was pretty great. No, Dean’s favorite part was that Bobby came down from South Dakota. 

Bobby knew Dad in some far-off time that neither discussed. Maybe it was the Marines, maybe it was some other thing that was as foreign to Dean as sushi. However it happened, the two were the most stubborn cusses Dean had ever laid eyes on, and watching them drink and swagger around was his favorite form of entertainment. 

Bobby’s rusted-out Chevy Nova shuddered to a halt on the curb in front of the Winchester house the day before the party. Dean and Sam were tending to the lawn while Mom weeded her flowerbeds, and all three of them dropped whatever they were doing to greet him. He brightened when he saw three-fourths of the Winchester family coming at him ready for hugs and slaps on the back. It wasn’t like Bobby never smiled, but still, Dean always felt he was seeing something special when it happened. They blustered together, Mom hugging him while Sam and Dean both shook his hand. 

“Mary, I swear you get younger every time I see you,” he said. 

She smacked him with her garden gloves. “I’ll take the compliment, even though I think you’re only angling for pie.” 

“It’s true, pie or no.” He turned to Sam and Dean, standing side-by-side. “And these two. For a minute there, I thought you’d hired some guys to work on the lawn. Didn’t realize these were the same pipsqueaks I’ve always known.” 

Sam beamed and straightened, enjoying his new-found height. 

They left their yard work for later and went inside, Mom sitting Bobby down at the dining room table and getting some sandwiches together. Bobby caught them up on the goings-on at his salvage yard. Dean had only been to Bobby’s place once or twice, and it was a wonderland. He had been no less impressed by it when he went there a couple summers ago than he had been as a kid. There was nothing but rusted, junked cars for nearly a mile around and his house was a relic of a bygone era. 

“And then Rufus shows up with a damn deer in the back of his truck. He’d hit it, but he didn’t wanna waste the meat,” Bobby said, putting some potato chips on his sandwich. “So he brings it to my place, worried the Forest Service was gonna get on him for it because it was out of season, asking me to put it in my deep freeze.” He crunched into his sandwich, raised his eyebrows, as if this settled whatever matter was at hand. 

“What’d you do with it?” Mom asked. 

“Made him give me a couple-a good cuts as rent on the deep freeze and for helping him dress it. It wasn’t in too bad of shape, all things considered. He got some good meat off it and the hide wasn’t totally shot to hell,” he said. 

“Sounds reasonable,” Sam said. 

“Indeed. Now tell me, boy, when did you get to being full-grown? Last I saw we was wondering if you’d ever see five-eight.” 

Sam blushed deep and looked down at his sandwich. 

“Trust me, Bobby,” Dean said, “it took us all by surprise.” 

“Didn’t take me by surprise,” Mom said. “Have you seen this kid eat? I knew he was about to grow, but my money was on sideways.” 

“Come on, Mom,” Sam mumbled, smiling and blushing and nearly in tears all at once. 

Dean remembered something, then, something from his dreams. In that world, Mom had died when Sam was a baby and he didn’t know her. He’d never had her potato salad or remembered what it was like to hug her, the way she radiated calm. He had never heard her make jokes like this or seen her dance with Dad at someone’s wedding reception. It took the wind out of him for a moment. 

Then Bobby was asking him about working at the shop, fixing up the Dart. 

“The Nova’s been making a weird noise lately,” he said. “Might have you take a look at it.” 

“I doubt there’s anything I could tell you that you don’t already know.” 

Bobby shrugged. “Might be good to have another set of ears on it.” 

Dean felt like Bobby was putting him on and maybe indulging him like a little kid. Still, he would appear petulant if he said anything to that effect. “Sure, then.” 

When lunch was over, Dean and Sam got shooed back out to the yard to finish their tasks while Mom and Bobby had some coffee and talked. Dean wanted to ask Mom if she was going to finish her chores and weed the flowerbeds, but he knew better than to verbalize that. She wouldn’t hit him or anything, but she sure as hell had a stink eye that could make a man’s balls turn to ice cubes. 

“You invite Castiel yet?” Sam asked when they were outside. 

Dean pruned the hedge he was working on perhaps a little too vigorously. “Not yet, but I asked Anna and she wasn’t thrilled about it, but she said okay. You inviting Jessica?” 

“Yeah.”

“Good. They’ll be relieved that ‘Jessica’ isn’t just your nickname for your right hand.” 

Sam fired up the weed eater and scowled at Dean, who tossed a bit of yard debris at him as he walked away.   
***

He finished in the yard and cleaned up, went over to Castiel’s. He hadn’t seen him since that night he came over for dinner. Dean tensed up as Castiel opened the door, expecting a cold shoulder. Instead, he actually smiled. It was tired and maybe a tiny bit sarcastic, but it was a smile. He stood back from the door, ushering Dean in with an extended arm. 

“So you didn’t scare yourself off, Mr. Sexy Staring Contest?” 

“Sarcastic bastard,” Dean said, flopping down on the couch. 

Castiel shut the door, sat on the couch as well, though on the opposite end. He stared at Dean expectantly, in that inscrutable way he had that hid and revealed himself in equal measure, and disoriented Dean so that he couldn’t tell the difference. 

“My parents are having a barbecue for the Fourth, and I wanted to invite you,” Dean said. 

Castiel rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. “Dean—”

“It’s just a goddamned barbecue,” Dean said. “I’m not putting you up for adoption or some shit. My mom really liked you and so did Sam. I’d just like to have a friend there, okay? Sam always invites his nerd herd and Mom and Dad always talk to the neighbors and I end up with people’s spazzy kids or whatever.” 

“You really know how to sweet-talk a guy.” He toyed with a frayed string on the couch. “What about Anna Milton?” 

“She’ll be there.”

“Then you really don’t need me.” 

“I would have liked to think I didn’t need to choose between my friend and my girlfriend, especially since you two go back.” 

“We were friends in middle school,” Castiel said. “When she was in eighth and I was in sixth. It’s ancient history.” 

“Well, no time like the present. Come on, she’s moving to . . . wherever . . . some unknown place after she graduates. Wouldn’t you rather make peace over whatever happened?” 

Castiel considered this, eyes narrowed. Dean knew he had him. 

“Fine, but if any grown-ups start meddling, I’m leaving.” 

Dean rolled his eyes. “Suit yourself, lone wolf.” 

He hung out a little while longer after that. Castiel had what he considered “new developments” in his father’s disappearance. It struck Dean that Castiel was making no move to look for his mom or get her back. He guessed he understood. For Castiel, she was a known quantity. His father was pure potential. Even though Dean suspected that – demonic possession or no – the kind of guy who fathered a child and then fucked off into the ether was probably not worth a person’s time. But he also could see the draw for Castiel. He would have done the same thing. Castiel’s mom had proven herself unreliable, but the hope that his father might at least have had an excuse was a powerful one indeed.  
***

That night, Dean dreamed Dad was possessed by a demon with yellow eyes. It was his father’s face, but rather than the genial smile that Dean was so used to or the fatherly concern, there was leering and smirking. The demon taunted and goaded him and Sammy, threatened and said terrible things that didn’t make any sense to Dean as he knew himself, but meant the world to his other self. 

When he awoke, gripped in fear and drenched in sweat, he could have sworn there was an inky shadow lurking in the corner of his room. When he turned on the light, however, there was nothing there except his old dresser.   
***

The next morning found Dean groggy and achy. His throat was itchy and his sinuses were clogged up. All he wanted to do was lay in bed, but he resisted. He got up only half an hour later than usual. Mom, Dad, and Bobby were already down in the kitchen.

“Geez, you sneak out and go to the bar?” Bobby asked when he saw Dean. 

Dean managed a weak laugh, poured himself some coffee. “Strip club, actually.” 

Mom threw a dishtowel at him. “You watch yourself, mister.” 

“Sorry, sorry,” he said, sitting down. 

“Are you sick again?” she asked, putting her hand on his forehead. 

“No. I don’t know. Probably not. It’s just really hot out, you know? And there’s not even a fart’s worth of a breeze,” he said. 

The truth was, he was bone-tired and on top of it all, that dream was sticking to him like plaster. He muddled through barbecue preparations in a haze, helping Dad with the grill and helping Mom peel potatoes and cleaning and whatever else. Throughout, the dream was just at the edge of his mind, the image of his father’s face flashing on him, those sulfurous eyes and that leering smile.

By the time he went to go get Castiel, he was ready for bed again. 

Castiel answered the door, and Dean thought, _What a pair of deuces,_ for the other boy had deep shadows under his eyes and a wilted slope to his shoulders. 

“Late night?” Dean asked. 

Castiel nodded and sipped some coffee. 

“Researching?” 

At that he coughed a little, and decided something on the far wall was eminently more interesting than Dean. When he turned his head, Dean saw the telltale smudges of hickeys trailing down beneath his collar. 

“Aw man, Cas. That again?” 

Castiel shrugged. “Whatever. I was bored.” 

“You could have called me. You probably could have called Anna. Or hell, you could have read a book or watched T.V. or played solitaire or any number of activities that doesn’t put your fresh young ass in harm’s way.” 

Castiel snorted into his coffee mug and leaned against the couch. “My ass may be young, but I don’t think it’s fresh anymore.” 

Dean held up a hand. “Okay, okay. No need to give me the gory details over here.” He sighed. “Well, better get going, I guess.” 

They drove back in relative silence, Dean turning up the stereo just loud enough to drown out the possibility of conversation. 

Back at Winchester H.Q., people had started to arrive – including Anna Milton. She was sitting on the porch, talking to Mom, wearing cut-off denim shorts and a tank top with an American flag printed all down the side. 

Mom caught sight of Castiel and pulled him in for a hug. Dean noticed that this time, the other boy didn’t shy away from it, instead leaning in and putting his head on Mom’s shoulder for a fraction of a second. Anna drifted back, perched herself on the porch railing while Mom looked Castiel over and quizzed him about what he’d been doing, which he managed to smoothly answer convincingly. 

“Well, I’ll go check on the corn. You kids don’t need me out here cramping your style. So nice to finally meet you, Anna,” she said. “And Castiel, good to see you again.” 

Mom went back inside, leaving Dean standing between Anna and Castiel – the latter of whom stood with one foot on the top step of the porch and the other turned and ready to run. 

“Hi, Cas,” Anna said, nodding. 

“Anna.” 

“So, you’ve met Dean’s parents?”

“Just once,” Castiel said. 

“Hey, let’s see what food we can scare up, huh?” Dean said, going inside and not bothering to look back to see if Castiel and Anna had followed. 

It turns out they did, Castiel’s slow shuffling steps behind him and then Anna’s sharp fingers digging into his arm, letting him know he was in trouble. 

Some of the neighbors had arrived already, and the table out back was filling up with pies, casseroles, deviled eggs, and macaroni salad. Dean grabbed a plate and piled it high before escaping to the far corner of the yard and sitting down. Castiel and Anna did the same, Anna sitting closer to him than she really needed to. 

“How have you been?” she asked. 

“I’ve been all right,” Castiel said, eyes focused on his food like it held the mysteries of all. 

“Good.” 

“Man, Mrs. Tellefson outdid herself with these devil eggs, huh?” Dean asked, too loud. 

“Yeah, they’re good,” Castiel whispered. 

Dean caught Sam’s eye across the yard, tilted his head as if to say _save me_. Jessica was with him, holding hands, and they shuffled over like Siamese twins, sitting down while still holding hands and both balancing plates of food. Dean was always impressed at the lengths some people would go to in order to show the world they were together. 

“Hey guys,” Sam said. 

“Hello, Sam,” Castiel said with the gravity of a surgeon informing a family that their loved one didn’t make it. 

Jessica introduced herself to Castiel, doing a marvelous job of being perky and pretending that there wasn’t a storm cloud of awkwardness hanging over the group. She and Anna were off and running, chatting about school starting and books they had read over the summer (ugh, why?) and movies they wanted to see. Part of Dean wished that there was a way for all of them to talk, for Anna and Castiel to be friends again, but he knew better, really. Sam stepped in and chattered on about something. Dean didn’t fully get it, but Castiel nodded every now and then and Dean himself managed a yeah or a no every once in a while, so he guessed in some definition of the word, it passed for a conversation. 

The neighbors came by and commented on how tall Sam was, how they’d heard Dean was working in Dad’s shop. They asked Sam if he was ready for high school and Dean if he was ready for senior year. They nodded appreciatively at the girls, an assurance to themselves that everyone was normal and no one was trying anything different and bringing Lawrence into the future. Dean wondered what it might have been like if Castiel had brought a boy to the barbecue, or worse yet, if Castiel was sitting plastered to Dean’s side rather than Anna. 

The afternoon passed this way in a comforting, boring haze. Anna and Castiel warmed up enough to smile a little at each other and talk about their classes for next year. Dean drank enough soda to clear the cobwebs from his mind, though the downside was that he had to pee every twenty minutes. Dad roped him in to grill duty for a while, which was nice of him, as grilling was a man’s job in the Winchester world. 

The sun started its slow descent around five, though it would be an eon before it was dark enough for fireworks. Still, it was enough to scatter the neighbors, most of them tipsy on Bud and Schlitz by then, a jovial jumble happening at the food table as everyone sorted out their Tupperware and casserole dishes, some of them laughing and saying, “Ah, screw it, I’ll come back tomorrow. Don’t worry about washing it, Mary.” 

Then it was just Mom, Dad, and Bobby, worn out and happy sitting on the porch. They’d all switched to whiskey, rare for Mom, who usually stuck to beer and the occasional glass of white wine. 

“So,” Dean said, Sam next to him and the rest of their little pack standing behind. “I was thinking . . .”

“Careful, don’t want to hurt yourself,” Bobby said, which made Dad chuckle. 

“Har har. So, I was thinking . . . we might, like, want to go somewhere to watch fireworks?” 

Dad looked at Mom and she looked back at him and they had the kind of silent conversation only two people who’d been married since the dawn of time and raised two kids could manage. 

“People get drunk and drive like damn fools on the Fourth,” she said, “but it would be nice to have an empty house for a while.” 

“Load up the dishwasher and take out all the trash before you go,” Dad said. 

“Yes, sir,” all five of them said in unison, Dad smiling in amusement. 

“And one of you, draw me a bath,” Bobby chimed in. “Don’t forget the bubbles and the rose petals, either.” 

“There’s an image that will haunt me way into my old age,” Sam said. 

Bobby threw a bottle cap at him, and the kids all scattered like leaves in the wind. They reconvened on the front porch twenty minutes later, having scrubbed and trashed and wiped down the kitchen counters. 

“Was your father’s friend serious about the bath?” Castiel asked. 

Dean rolled his eyes. “No, come on.” 

They all piled in the Dart – Anna calling shotgun and practically running to the car – and the rest of them squeezing into the back, Jessica sandwiched between Sam and Castiel. 

“I ate too much,” Jessica groaned, putting her head on Sam’s shoulder. “I hope I don’t explode.” 

“There will be no exploding in my car,” Dean said. 

“It was the nicest holiday I’ve ever had,” Castiel said, voice naked with emotion. It was one of those moments where the truth of something came down so massive and crushing that it blotted everything else out. 

Dean glanced into the rear view mirror and watched Castiel staring out at the passing town, the folks sitting in their front yards and the businesses closed for the holiday.

Everyone in the car was silent, even Jessica, who didn’t know the goings-on in Castiel’s life. She was what the adults called “a good kid,” though, so she understood the importance of silence at times like these, where other kids might have blundered through and made a cutting remark. Dean might have been that asshole at the start of the summer, but not now. 

He drove them all out to the old rail yard on the edge of town, rusting trains left to decay on broken tracks. Dry yellow weeds grew up all over, interspersed with milkweed and dandelions and wildflowers. 

They climbed on top of one of the old cars, the boys going first and then hoisting Jessica and Anna up. They all stood a moment, feeling like the lone survivors of some nuclear holocaust. Off in the distance, there was the little dot of another group of kids. They hollered across the yard, jumped up and down, waved their arms. Their counterparts whooped back and waved. 

They all settled on top of the boxcar, jumbled happily together. The sun had begun to set in earnest, deep on the horizon, brilliant and terrifying. Another hour and it was really dark, the first fireworks starting up near the university. It was a modest display, the finale of it ending with incessant bursts of Jayhawk blue and red. Then, it was downtown’s turn, somewhere in the vague direction of city hall. 

They climbed down in the dark, the girls squealing, Sam nearly slipping off the second-to-last rung, and Castiel catching him in an awkward jumble. Dean took Anna home, kissed her quick outside the car. Then he took Jessica home, Sam doing the same. 

When it was time to drop Castiel off, Dean got out of the car, standing with one foot on the street, the other in the car. The asphalt was hot even through his sneakers, even though it was past eleven. 

“Hey, I’ll – uh – I’ll swing by tomorrow with some leftovers, yeah? I’m sorry I didn’t set you up with any tonight.” 

“It’s okay.” Even in the streetlights, those horrible things that sucked the life out of anything they touched, Castiel’s eyes were electric blue. “I really did have a great time.” 

“Good, I’m glad. See you tomorrow, then?” 

“Sure, Dean,” he said, going up the front walk. 

He got back in the car and came face-to-face with Sam’s inquisitive look. 

“Don’t look at me like that, Sammy.” 

“His mom still isn’t back?” 

“I didn’t ask,” Dean said, his words clipped like bird wings. “Neither should you.”

“Does Castiel have parents?” 

“Everybody’s got parents. Some people have, like, four.” 

“Right, of course, very educational. Does Castiel have parents that live with him and take care of him?” 

“His mom.” 

“Uh-huh, the one who was in Denver days ago and still isn’t back?”

Dean pulled the car off in front of some random house, threw it into park, and turned it off, lights and all. He turned in his seat to face Sam. “Do not go asking questions like this, Sammy. Don’t do it.”

“Fine,” he said, pursing his lips in his signature bitch-face. “Let’s get home before it gets to be Dad-pitches-a-fit o’clock.” 

Incidentally, Dad was passed out on the couch with all the lights on when they got home. Bobby was snoring in the guest room so loud they could hear it in the hall. And at the end of the hall in the master bedroom, there was Mom, sprawled on top of the covers wearing her nightgown and one sock. Dean shut the door, he and Sam snickering. Good for them, really. 

Then Sam got all serious again. 

“Dean, if there’s ever anything you need to talk about—”

Dean held up a hand. “I know, Sammy. But there’s nothing to say. Cas has gotta work all this out on his own, and no amount of me talking to you is going to help him.” 

“Right. Of course. But there’s also – I mean – if there was anything else—”

“What else would there be?” he asked, crossing his arms. 

“Just, you know – I mean, like, I know he’s – whatever. And I know you guys are close—”

“Whatever you’re saying, or think you’re saying, or are thinking, just stop. All right? It’s not like that.”

“All I’m saying is, if you ever wanna tell me what it’s like, I’m here.” He pushed past Dean and went to his own room. 

Dean went to his, fuming, thinking about what a meddling little dick his brother could be. He toed off his sneakers, stripped out of his jeans and t-shirt, leaving them in an unceremonious pile. He went back down the hall to brush his teeth before Sam got there, and went back in his room. 

When he got there, though, he stopped with his back against the door and his heart beating like crazy in his chest. There, standing by the window like he belonged there, was the older, deadlier, leather jacketed self he had come to know from his dreams. The guy who had helped defeat the devil, who had turned down an archangel, who had hacked through an endless parade of beasts. There, in Dean’s room. And he looked pissed.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean's encounter with himself doesn't go well. After the other version of himself disappears, Dean goes right over to Castiel's. They decide there's nothing left to do but get drunk, after which John and Bobby find him. John is not amused. Dean gets into massive trouble for it, his relationship with Castiel is called into further question, and Sam remains his only ally.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Underage drinking, alternate universe confusion, and slurs.

“Friggin’ witches, man,” he hissed, pacing the modest length of Dean’s room. “One minute you’re minding your business, the next they toss your ass into Mayberry.” 

He splayed out his hands and started to feel along the wall, mumbling to himself. Dean took a tentative step forward. 

“Can you see me?” 

“Shit in a goddamned shoe,” this other person said, turning to Dean. “You can see me now, and I can see you. Just great.” 

“Isn’t that a good thing?” 

“Well, I can also see that I am borderline stupid in this reality. Glad we got that out of the way. No, it is not a good thing that we can see each other, because that means that instead of getting transplanted into some dream version of your life, I got transported balls and all, corporeally.” He reached down and groped his crotch, nodded his head. “Yep, balls and all.” 

“Other me is awesome,” Dean said. “I hate myself now.” 

He was across the room in a flash, his hands gripping Dean hard, his jaw working hard to keep his voice low. “Other you is not awesome. Other you is in a hell of a fucking pickle.” 

“But the dreams – those weren’t just dreams, were they? I was seeing your life.” 

He dropped his hands from Dean’s shoulders. And wow, if Dean had thought his own hands were already oven mitts with calluses, this guy’s were like rawhide. He could have played catcher for the Royals without a mitt. 

“Yeah, kid, you were seeing my life. And I was seeing yours. Which – which is pretty great, so don’t take it for granted.” 

He wondered if this guy had seen Castiel and his various predicaments. 

“I know,” Dean said. “Look, we have to get you out of here. My parents are here, and Bobby—”

“Of course,” he said, running his hand over his face. “Mom and Dad and Uncle Bobby.” 

Dean swallowed hard. Those folks had been ripped from that other life and put back wrong and taken out again so many times it made his head spin to think of it. 

“I gotta find my own way out of this. The longer I’m here, the more you’re in danger.” 

“I know what’s after you,” he said. “I dreamed it. I want to help.” 

Strong hands gripped Dean’s shoulders. His other self held him fast, eyes burning. “You might know, but you don’t understand. This is legitimately dangerous, and it is _my_ fight, not yours. The best way for you to help is to stay the hell out of my way.” 

“But—”

“But nothing. You’ve got a good life here, kid. Live it, and live it good. Take care of your family. Take care of Cas. Don’t try to follow me into the dark, here.” 

“This is my fight, too. She’s messing with me, with all these dreams and these black shadows I’ve been seeing.”

“She’s messing with you to get to me, and I am going to end this, you hear me? I don’t need your help. I got this, okay? I got this. I can’t do my job worrying about you, too.”

Maybe he was right. This other version of himself was covered in scars and still bruised from whatever fight had most recently come close to punching his clock. His eyes showed the wear and tear of everything they had seen. 

“Okay,” Dean said. “But once it’s done, I want you to come tell me it’s done.” 

“That’s fair. Only, I can’t trust you to keep off my trail.” 

“What—?”

Before he could ask, those massive paws were around his neck, squeezing his throat. Then once, twice – this other version of himself punched him in the face. As his eyes fluttered shut, he saw himself climb out the window before nothingness overtook him.  
***

He awoke later, his head throbbing, his face hot. A look at the clock revealed he had been out for forty-five minutes. It was almost one o’clock. He was alone in his bedroom, the open window letting in the barest breeze. 

He staggered to the bathroom and drank some water, splashed a little on his stinging face. He had an impressive shiner, but nothing was broken and he wasn’t bleeding, so that was good. 

He peeked down the stairs, and the lights were off. Dad had vacated the couch, and the dual sounds of snoring came from the guest room and the master bedroom. Creeping back into his bedroom, he put his jeans back on and grabbed his keys. 

He went over to Castiel’s, trusting that he would be awake, and he was. Dean had never been so grateful to see someone’s silhouette as he was to see the outline of Castiel in those ratty curtains. He went up the front walk and knocked softly. Castiel flung the door open, scowling, then softening when he saw Dean. 

“What the hell?” he asked, pulling him inside. 

Dean started shaking, pacing around the living room while Castiel stood plastered to the door. The whole story poured out of him, about the dreams and the witch and his other self from another world. He told Castiel about how he had tried to help and gotten punched. 

“I’m sorry. You were the only one who would understand.” 

Castiel nodded and then went to the kitchen. Dean followed, watching as he poured a hefty amount of vodka into two glasses and followed it with red Kool-Aid. He handed one to Dean and kept one for himself. 

“What—?”

“Just drink it,” Castiel said. “It’ll take the edge off.” 

He led them back into the living room. Dean choked down the drink in fits and starts, even though the vodka gave it a bitter flavor like nail polish remover. It did take the edge off, though, that was true. The world fuzzed over at the edges and his mind quieted. 

“What now?” Castiel asked. 

“Nothing,” he said. “There’s nothing to do until he comes back. If he comes back.” 

“This guy’s out there with your face, Dean. Maybe he’s not even – you know – _you_.” 

“He’s me,” he said, laughing low and joyless. “That much is true.” 

“But you said, in these dreams, there were creatures that could shape-shift and possess people. What if he’s one of those?” 

Dean shrugged. “Just one of those things I know deep down, I guess.” 

“Hmph. I guess.”

Castiel turned on the crackling television set and they watched an old movie about a guy on the lam, the girl he loved, and the men who were after him. It was every movie, really. This one was from the fifties and the men did all this in suits and fedoras and the women did it in nice dresses and girdles. Past generations were made of stronger stuff. 

The movie ended and another one started, another one about a guy on the lam and the girl he loved and the men who were after him. This one was from the seventies and all the dudes wore these wide-collared suits with chest hair poking through. The women wore jumpsuits and short dresses. The color palette was too bright and the cars looked all wrong. Still, he watched. There were some good fight scenes, most of which Castiel missed. As soon as punches were thrown, he was off to the kitchen or back to the back of the house. 

Dean didn’t care about the ending of the movie at a certain point. 

“I think – I think in that other place,” Dean said, fully aware of his voice slurring, “that they’re together.” 

“What other place? Who?” 

“Don’t play stupid,” Dean said, spitting Castiel’s words back to him. “It doesn’t suit you.” 

Castiel stiffened in his seat, shifted his shoulders, set his jaw. “Fine. You mean other me and other you.” 

“Very good.”

“So what if they are?” 

“Nothing,” Dean said. “It’s just kind of weird, that’s all. Not weird because of the gay thing. Just the little differences.” 

“The little differences where we’re boyfriends in another dimension and you get tossed into another reality by a demon and I’m an angel. Those little differences. Uh-huh,” Castiel said, nodding. 

“When you put it like that . . .”

“Don’t look at me like that, Dean. I warned you about looking at me like that.” 

Dean didn’t know what Castiel meant by “like that.” All he knew was that he could see the little pinpricks of white-blue light around Castiel, that energy buzzing just beneath his skin, ready to explode but being contained by sheer force of will. 

“You’re an angel,” Dean said. “Over there. An angel of the lord. You have this vessel, this lame little meat suit, but your real form is like a skyscraper of pure energy.” 

“And in this universe I’m some faggot with no parents. In another, maybe I headline a rock band. In another, maybe I’m a doctor. It doesn’t mean anything here and now.” 

“You’re not just some – I mean, you’re more than that. You keep using that word.” 

“Faggot?” 

Dean nodded. 

“I’ve come to love it, you know? It’s sort of nice, when you think about it. Something about it reminds me of words like _gondola_ or _grenade_.” 

Dean didn’t buy it or like it in the least. He shifted on the couch and managed to concentrate on the movie for five whole minutes.

“The whole angel thing is all pretty powerful, really. There’s like this sense that you have a friend, someone there no matter what. All you do is say ‘I need you,’ and there they are. But then again, they’re these eternal beings of light and if you look at them directly, your eyes are burned out of your head. Straight out, like liquid turned right into gas,” Dean said. 

Castiel looked at him like after everything they’d been through already, this was the point at which he declared Dean insane. 

“We think of them as guardians, but they also destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. They also told Elizabeth she was pregnant with John the Baptist, or Mary she was pregnant with Jesus—”

“Stop it!” Castiel said, standing up, pacing, putting his hands over his ears. “Stop it. If I knew it would turn you into Joan of fucking Arc, I wouldn’t have given you any vodka.” 

“Whatever. Fine. Don’t get your panties in a twist.” 

“There are no fucking angels, Dean. There might be demons, but there are no angels.”

“I don’t want to believe that.” 

“Fine. Then don’t. Believe that there are beings of pure light who can sublimate people’s eyeballs.” 

Dean turned on his side, his face in the back of the couch. It smelled like years of sweat and cheap detergent and fried food. At this range, he could see crumbs and other flecks of grit and dirt. Unappetizing though it was, he was stuck with it because he was too drunk to drive. The TV droned in the background, oppressive and constant and pointless. 

He heard Castiel get up after a while and then come back, sit back down in the rocking chair. It creaked back and forth under his weight. 

“All right, fine, I’m sorry,” he said. 

“I didn’t ask you to be sorry.” 

“Well, I am anyway.” 

Dean turned over again, faced him. Castiel looked older than his years. His face was smooth with no lines or stubble, but his eyes were tight and his lips were set with resignation. 

“Cas, you work so fucking hard keeping people out and then you’re bitter because no one’s there for you. I get that you got the short straw in the parents department, but there’s other stuff in your life that you could make a whole hell of a lot better for yourself—”

“Such as? Not being such a faggot?” 

“Jesus fucking Christ on a fucking goddamn cracker,” Dean said. “You’re the one that keeps bringing that up and using that word. You can’t stop being gay any more than I could stop being straight. I know that. But you don’t have to go try and get laid by going to some shady park. There’s a university here, if you’ll remember. Go find a college guy!” 

“You don’t know jack shit about what I do—”

“I know you got your ass fucking _whooped_ there once.” 

“I’ve gotten my ass whooped before, and I’ll get it whooped again, and that is just a hard truth of life that you will never know, Dean. People will never mess with you. Do you realize that? You are so straight and so much of a guy. You’re a fucking mechanic.” 

Dean sat up, his head spinning from Castiel’s words as much as the vodka. He hadn’t signed up for any of this. He should have taken Garth up on his offer to hang out all summer, should have kept his friendship with Castiel at school and nowhere else. But he was enmeshed, now. He liked the kid, cared about his wellbeing. For whatever reason, he wanted Castiel to like him, too. 

He got up and staggered to the kitchen, rinsed out his glass and filled it with tap water. It was bitter and metallic going down, the taste of chemical treatments and old pipes. It made him feel better anyway, and he could picture the vodka diluting in his blood, filtering through his organs and absorbing into him or getting flushed out or whatever the fuck happened to vodka when it stopped making you drunk.   
***  
He passed out on the couch at some point and awoke a while later with sunlight streaming through the windows he thought it was a nuclear holocaust. It all came back to him in a rush – along with persistent pounding on the door. 

He scrambled up and Castiel came skidding down the hall, in his pajamas.

His father’s voice roared through the cheap front door. “Dean Winchester, get your ass out here on the double.” 

Castiel stood with his hand on the doorknob, looking to Dean for direction.

“Open the door,” he said, ready to face his father. 

Castiel barely got the door open before Dad was rushing past him and straight to Dean. Bobby followed close behind, pulling Dad back as he grabbed at Dean’s arm, ready to pull him out. 

“Cool your damn jets, John.” 

“Where the hell have you been? Got up for breakfast this morning and your brother was there, but you were gone. Said he heard a tussle last night after you went to bed, you arguing with someone. Your mom is pacing a hole in the floor as we speak—Are you drunk? And what the hell happened to your face?” 

“Yes, sir,” he said, his head down, his ears burning. “I’m sorry.” 

“Not yet you ain’t. What happened? Did you get in a fight? This kid drag you into some brawl?”

“Dad, chill out a second—”

“You traipsed off and then I find you here with this little delinquent, drunk and with half your damn face bruised. I sure as shit will not be ‘chilling,’ you little dick.”

“John, hey, maybe you wanna take the truck home and let Mary know he’s okay, huh?” Bobby said, his hand on Dad’s arm. “I’ll drive the Dart home with this idiot.” 

Dad wrested himself out of Bobby’s grip. “This boy’s gonna answer for this.” 

“I know, and that’s your business, but maybe you oughta cool off before you start in on all that.” 

Dad wheeled around and turned on Castiel. “I shoulda figured you were behind this. Why’d you get him drunk, huh? What were _you_ planning? I know it wasn’t the other way around.” 

For the first time in the months he had known him, Castiel looked genuinely scared. The real story, the actual truth, was somehow worse than whatever Dad was thinking, and Dean was pretty sure that whatever he was thinking wasn’t exactly dinner table conversation.

“I’m sorry,” he said. 

Dad lunged forward, took Castiel by the front of his t-shirt, pushed him against the wall. Castiel made a pathetic little squeak, which didn’t deter Dad one bit. 

“If you ever come near my son again, I will call the county on you. I know you don’t have anyone here looking after you – clearly – and I will not let you drag my son into whatever perverted shit you’re into when no one’s keeping tabs on you.” 

“All right, John,” Bobby said, pulling him back. 

Dad shook him off, muttering to himself. He pointed at Dean. “Get this dumbass back home pronto.” 

He stormed out the front door, his black truck bellowing to life a minute later. Castiel peeled himself from the wall and shut the door, straightened his shirt. 

“I’m sorry about that, boy,” Bobby said, taking in the ragged clothes and the general absence of an adult presence in the home. 

“Well, like I told Dean – I’m used to that kind of thing.” 

“John ain’t like that. He’s just worried about his kid.” 

“Sir, with all due respect, it would appear he is _like that_.” 

Bobby didn’t condescend to argue, instead held his hand out for Dean’s keys, which he proffered quite willingly. 

“I’ll call you when this blows over,” he said to Castiel, staggering out the door. 

Castiel watched him go in silence, staring like a man who saw flip-flops float downriver.   
***

Bobby took them on the long way home, stopping at the park by their house. The park where he and Anna had sat on the swings and kissed on the softball diamond. That seemed a million years ago, and Anna might as well have been away at college already. 

“Things ain’t like they was when me and your dad were younger,” Bobby said. 

He parked and they got out, walked to an empty picnic table. The sun had begun its slow dally to the horizon, the summertime dance that took hours. It was probably close to five. What a long two days it had been, and such a contrast between the two that Dean’s head spun to think of it. 

“When those homosexuals just stayed in their closets, huh?” 

“That’s not what I’m sayin’.”

Dean raised his eyebrows, and Bobby sighed, adjusted his baseball cap. 

“All right, maybe I’m sayin’ that a little bit. I don’t mean no disrespect by it, only that it’s a steep learning curve for some of us.”

“I’m not gay,” Dean said. “And hanging out with Cas isn’t making me gay.”

“I know. And your dad knows it, too, somewhere in the inner recesses of his noodle.” 

“Cas isn’t like anyone I’ve ever met,” Dean said. “He’s on this other level from everyone else, and I like that about him. I’m going to keep being his friend. I’m seventeen, Bobby. I’m not a little kid.”

Bobby scratched his beard and nodded. “True statements, all.” 

“But?”

“But nothin’, except the old adage to pick your battles. If this kid is worth going toe-to-toe with John over, more power to you, but you know him well enough to know when he’s got a notion lodged in his mind, it takes a lot of heavy machinery to pry it loose.” 

“And you should know me well enough to know that I inherited that trait,” Dean said.

The booze had worn off, leaving him hungry and frayed. His stomach growled. 

“All right, we’ll stop for something greasy on the way, give John a little more time to get his shit together,” Bobby said. “My doctor would have a fit, but she ain’t here and I’m on vacation.”

They went to Biggerson’s, which wasn’t Dean’s first choice, but Bobby was driving. The starch and grease left him feeling as good as he could have expected. He wondered idly how his other self was getting on, if he was back in another dimension or out robbing banks and plastering Dean’s face all over security cameras far and wide. 

The waitress that had been there that night after Garth’s party was there, perky as ever, perhaps even more so now that she got to be on the day shift. In the light, he saw she wasn’t as young as she looked before and she had the worn-down carriage of a person nearly worked to the bone. He wondered if she had kids, and why Castiel’s mom couldn’t do something like get a job at Biggerson’s. This lady – Sheila, according to her nametag – was probably in almost the same boat. He wished he could ask her something like that, but he knew better. 

“Now, what really happened to your face?” 

Dean sighed and dredged a fry through a smear of ketchup. “I got punched.”

“By?” 

“My inner demons, you might say.” 

“I might – if I was being a sarcastic little dick.” 

“Bobby, the truth is so freakin’ strange, I don’t even believe it. So just trust me when I say: Cas didn’t do it, it wasn’t a hate crime, and it was entirely my fault. I had it coming.” 

Bobby polished off the last of his hash browns and laid down some money for the bill. He gave Dean a supremely sour look, but he dropped it. 

When they finally got back to the house, Dean’s parents were sitting there on the couch. They were on opposite ends, he noticed, and Mom had her arms and legs crossed, one socked foot bouncing and bouncing while she stared into space. Dad was leaning forward with his hands clenched together. Bobby called Sam down and took him for a drive. 

“You should have called,” Mom said, still staring into space. “If you had just called.” She didn’t say what would have happened. She wouldn’t be worried and Dad wouldn’t be mad. 

“It was thoughtless,” Dad said, as if that was the absolute nadir of human behavior, and maybe it was. 

“I know.” 

“And that boy – I knew he’d be trouble.” 

“Dad, come on—”

“Come on nothing. We first hear of this boy when you rescue him from the park, after a thorough ass kicking, he’s clearly running footloose and fancy-free over there, and then he gives you booze. I have half a mind to call child services. Who knows what else he’s up to.” He sat back on the couch like this settled something, like some conclusion had been drawn, but the only conclusion Dean could see was that his dad was a real asshole when he set his mind to it.

The irony was that somehow, Castiel was one of the most innocent people Dean had ever met. Who else would go looking for love in a park in the middle of the night? Who else would have so readily accepted that there was another universe out there or that his father was led away by demons rather than simple human perfidy? 

He remembered what Bobby had said about choosing his battles. He heard that phrase from adults all the time, but it had never really mattered. There weren’t really a lot of battles worth fighting in the first seventeen years of life. This did matter, and he knew that he would need to take care in order to keep being friends with Castiel, and he did want to stay friends. So he groveled and apologized and Dad looked pretty satisfied with himself for winning.

The end result of all this was that Dean was grounded the rest of July. He could work and that was about it. He wasn’t to see Castiel under any circumstances. He could see Anna, but only if she came over. He would have to hang out with Sam. It was going to be a very long three weeks.   
***

His first order of business, of course, was to get Anna to deliver a message to Castiel. He waited a couple days, calling her to tell her of his woes. Well, most of them. He left out his body double and his weird dreams and how he was gay in another universe, or at least gay for Castiel in another universe. 

She came over that night for dinner. She wore her hair in two braids trailing over her breasts. 

He worried what she might think of Bobby. He was rougher than the rest of the people they interacted with, for all his grumbling and sarcasm. But she brought out some untapped sweetness in him. He looked ten years younger smiling at her as she talked old school country music. 

“You’ve gotta listen to Marty Robbins,” he said, “or you just ain’t getting the full scope.” 

Dad, of course, was sweet as pie to her, telling her all about cars and about how well Dean was doing. He asked about her dad, who had gotten his car fixed at the shop before and who was a preacher. Her mom was a second-grade teacher. 

Mom would have been nice to her no matter what, but Dean thought he saw something sad in her eyes. He guessed she didn’t agree with Dad’s terms, but she too was picking her battles. 

After dinner, she said, “I’ll get Sam to help with the dishes—”

From the living room, there was a wail of, “But Mo-o-o-o-o-o-m-m-m-m-m! Dean’s grounded anyway.” 

“Samuel Winchester, you get your little butt in here and start putting away leftovers before I start thinking you need to wear a frilly little apron while you help me do these dishes – because you _will_ be helping me with these dishes, Mr. Man.” 

“Fine,” he said, shuffling in. 

“Now, you two go on the porch with some ice cream and hang out a while.” 

He dished them up two big bowls (vanilla bean for Anna, chocolate-cherry-walnut swirl for Dean) and high-tailed it out to the porch. It had been three days of working and then spending the next nineteen hours at home and then working and even then he was ready to claw his own eyes out just for some movement. He heard Dad sniping to Mom in the kitchen, and Mom didn’t even snipe back, which worried Dean. 

“So you got in trouble?” Anna said, settling on the top step of the porch, her back against the railing. She had her legs crossed and he could see her bright purple underwear. Oh, the things he wanted to do to that pristine little highway of skin shadowed by her shorts, leading up to the Promised Land. 

“Yeah. I went over to Cas’ and got kinda drunk and neglected to tell anyone where I was.”

Anna swirled her melting ice cream around and stared at it like a fortuneteller. “Drunk with Castiel, huh? Whose idea was that?” 

“It had been – uh – a weird kind of night, you know? So we were just ready for it, I guess. He had some vodka.” 

She nodded like Dean had just told her he had stage-four something. 

“Jesus, it was just one drunk afternoon. Why is everyone acting like I’m the first person to get drunk before twenty-one?” 

“It’s not that, dummy.” 

Of course. It wouldn’t be that. Getting drunk was _normal_ , after all. Getting drunk with the neighborhood faggot, though – that was borderline. 

“Oh, right.” 

“Look, it just – with Castiel – it all seems so exciting and romantic at first. Here he is, this weird little ball of something-or-other. His mom is barely around, and he’s all smart and bitter and he’s not like any of the other people at school. So you start hanging out, and then you get sucked into his orbit. And after a while, you – you find yourself doing stuff you wouldn’t dream of in the real world. But you’re not in the real world, anymore. You’re in Castiel’s world.” 

“You make him sound like some con man. Jesus, the kid can barely dress himself.”

She set her ice cream bowl down. “He’s still – he’s basically a good kid. But he does some things that don’t sit well with me.” 

Dean knew what she meant. It didn’t sit well with him either, but as far as Dean could see, he was worried about Castiel’s wellbeing and she was thinking it showed some kind of crack in his moral fortitude. 

“Well, whatever. Look, do you think you could do me a favor? Could you just give him a call and let him know I’m not mad at him?” 

She sighed and rubbed her eyes. “Dean—”

“Well fuck. If it’s going to be that much trouble, I’ll get Sam to do it.” 

“It’s not that, it’s just—”

“You worry that I’m fucking him? Or the other way around? Or however the hell all that works?” 

“Jesus, Dean.” 

“What the hell else am I supposed to think?” 

She shifted where she was sitting, cleared her throat. “I think you’re wrapped up in the Castiel thing, that’s all.” 

“Did you get wrapped up in it?” 

“It doesn’t matter.” 

“The hell it doesn’t.”

She stood up, finally, her ice cream melted and forgotten in the bowl, soupy and viscous. She had little red creases where her legs had met the rough boards of the porch. “I’m going to go, Dean. You’ve had a rough few days. I don’t think you’re, you know, _thinking straight._ ”

He watched her go, her braids bobbing with each step. She held her head high in resolution. There was a sense of finality to it, and he wondered if he should try harder. But if she was going to be as much of a jerk about Castiel as everyone else, then forget her. Dean didn’t need that. 

Sam came out, his own bowl of ice cream in his hands. It was that little turquoise bowl he’d had since he was a little kid, chipped in a couple places, broken and put together wonky. Dean smiled at the sight of it, something so familiar and normal. 

“What’s going on?” 

“I think me and Anna might have just broken up,” Dean said, feeling strangely not sad about it. 

“Oh, shit.” 

“I’m kind of okay with it,” Dean said. “Hey, will you do me a favor?”

Sam eyed him warily and spooned some ice cream into his mouth. “That depends entirely on the favor,” he said. Ice cream looked far less pleasant when viewed as a melting mess in his brother’s mouth. 

“Dude, don’t talk with your mouth full.” 

“Whatever. I seem to recall you being the one that cannot let a Thanksgiving pass without filling yours full of mashed potatoes and then dribbling it out slowly while you call yourself ‘The Amazing Human Zit.’ Now what’s this favor?” 

“I need you to get a message to Cas.”

Sam clattered his spoon into his bowl. “Are you fucking kidding me?” 

“What? I’m totally grounded and Dad thinks Cas is going to—” He stopped himself just in time. He knew that Sam knew about Castiel, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud. “Dad thinks Cas is going to be a bad influence.” 

“Uh-huh. Meanwhile, you just broke up with the girl you’ve been dating for like two months, and this is your first thought.” 

“Bros before hoes.” 

“Anna’s not a ho.” 

“And Cas ain’t exactly a bro. Come on, man. I just need you to go over there and tell him that I’m not mad at him and I want to hang as soon as my sentence runs out,” Dean said, punching Sam on the arm. 

Sam batted Dean’s hand away, thought about it a minute. He ate his ice cream so slow that each bite threatened to melt and drip out of the spoon. Finally, he said, “Yeah, sure. I’ll go over to Cas’ and tell him all that. But I have one stipulation.”

“What the fuck is a stipulation?” 

“A condition.” 

“So why not just say that?” 

“Because ‘condition’ is not a vocab word. Okay, so my stipulation is this: You have to tell me what’s really going on with Cas.” 

“Come on, Sammy.” 

“If I’m going to be sticking my neck out for you, don’t I at least get to know why it’s so damn important?” 

Dean crossed his arms and looked away, focused somewhere off in the distance. He could see the edge of town, and it was so weird to think of the space where Lawrence ended and the rest of the world began. Sam was right, of course, which galled Dean to the living end. He ticked his head and got up, leading Sam over to the side yard. It was overgrown with weeds and dry grass, rusted out tools and a couple old tires. Dean made a mental note to clean it while he was grounded. He had nothing better to do. 

“All right, what do you want to know?” 

“Where are his parents?” 

“Who the fuck knows?” 

“Wow. His mom?” 

Dean shook his head. 

“His dad?” 

“Don’t even go there.” 

“Wow. Fuck.” 

Dean watched it all happen on Sam’s face, the same dawning of realization that he himself had. His forehead lost that worried crease it always carried; his eyes got big. The tension slipped off his face in sheer surprise. 

“He’s alone.” 

“If you tell anyone – I don’t even want to think about how bad that will be.” 

“We have to.” 

Dean gripped Sam’s arm, hard, feeling the muscles grind against each other. “You can’t. We can’t. You hear me? This ain’t our business. We’ll be meddling in affairs that we don’t know jack about.” 

“But Dean—” 

“But nothing, Sammy. Come on.” 

Sam slumped back against the house, little flecks of dust coming off as his hand brushed the paint. His eyes were unfocused, dazed. 

“And he’s – I mean – he’s not into girls, is he?” 

Dean stayed quiet for that. Still, he couldn’t say it. Neither, he noticed, could Sam. After all, the question hadn’t been _Is Castiel gay?_ Castiel himself hadn’t really said it. He’d said that there was one rumor about him at school that happened to be true. He called himself a faggot, and even that was a barrier to the truth. If he couched it in the worst terms possible, there was no way to get to the real truth of the thing, which was that he was stuck in a small town and he liked boys and not a lot of people would be cool with that. Maybe he liked Dean, and Dean knew less what to do with that than with anything else. 

For his part of the whole scene, Sam stood there in silence, plastered to the side of the house, eyes unfocused and dazed. 

“If you tell anyone _any_ of this, Cas won’t even need to get back at you. I’ll do it for him.” 

Sam shook himself back to real life. “Do you—” 

“No.” 

Sam nodded, finally satisfied. “All right. I’ll go see him tomorrow. I won’t tell anyone any of this.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam comes back to Dean with news of Castiel, and it isn't what Dean would have wanted it to be. John's still mad at him. Dean and Castiel have a tense heart-to-heart. Dean dreams about the other world, and finds out how Sam and Castiel are doing in "his" absence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really like this whole story. I said a lot of things I've always wanted to say, but never had the right configurations for. But this chapter is probably my favorite. I don't know why -- probably the sexual tension between Dean and Cas. That's my favorite part of anything these days. I hope you like it as much as I do.

Sam made good on his word, heading over to Castiel’s after Dean had gone to work. They reconvened after lunch, their parents and Bobby having gone to an Indian casino for the day. Dean was rather surprised that Dad had even considered leaving him alone, but he didn’t question it. He supposed he could go over to Castiel’s himself at that point, but it wasn’t worth the risk at all. If Dad came back and Dean was gone, the phrase “hell to pay” would have new meaning. 

Sam left a note wedged in Dean’s bedroom door. _Gone to Cas’. Be back soon._ Dean folded the note and unfolded it, sat in his desk chair with it in his hand, stared at it and then put it down. He stared out the window and then finally crumpled the note and put it in the trash. He went downstairs and made Sam a turkey sandwich and even a little salad, because for some reason his brother was into that shit. He made a sandwich for himself, though he put extra mayo and cheese on it and omitted lettuce. 

Sam came back and shuffled into the kitchen, tired and sad. Dean presented him with the lunch he had made, and he smiled a little at that, plucking a cherry tomato out of the salad and mumbling a thanks. 

“That bad, huh?” Dean asked. 

“That kid has it rough.” 

“Is he okay?” 

“For the most part,” Sam said around a mouthful of rabbit food. “He looked – well – he looked like whatever he did to get himself beat up last time, he did it again.” 

Dean’s jaw clenched and he felt the give of the white bread in his hand as he accidentally squeezed his sandwich. “How bad?” 

“Not as bad as last time, but he had a decent shiner.”

“Goddammit. Well, did you at least tell him I’m not mad at him?” 

“Yeah, I told him.” 

“And?” 

Sam sighed. “He said you don’t have to hang out with him. He said that it might be better if you didn’t.” 

“That’s bullshit.” 

“That’s what he said.” Sam had finished his food, mopping up the last bits of ranch dressing with the crust of his bread. 

Dean nodded and stood up. He put his plate in the sink and stared out over the back yard and to the fence. Through the gaps in the planks, he could see the neighbors’ yard. A lawn chair was there, a rumpled towel on it, a paperback book fanned out on the ground, waiting for someone to return to their afternoon siesta. 

He knew what he would have to do. It was just a matter of planning. There would be time for it, though. He would see to that.   
***

The next day was Bobby’s last day in town. Dean was more sad to see him go this time, even though he’d be back at Thanksgiving and Christmas. He couldn’t figure why Bobby didn’t just move to Lawrence. Maybe it would be too much trouble moving the contents of his scrap yard. 

Mom cooked a big dinner, and Bobby exclaimed over every single dish like it was manna from heaven. 

“I love cooking for you, Bobby,” she said. “It’s a hell of an ego-boost.” 

“Hey now,” Dad said, pulling her down as she stood up. “The sheer volume these boys eat should be a good indicator.” 

“That’s true, though I get the impression they’d eat old boot leather if I put enough salt on it. I don’t think teenage boys are known for being discerning,” she said. 

“And not just about food,” Bobby replied, raising his beer. Sam giggled at the entendre. 

“Well, since I cooked such a fantastic dinner and wore myself out for dessert, it’s up to one of you intrepid hunter-gatherers to get me a pie,” Mom said. “And someone else do the dishes. I’m going to take a bubble bath.” 

She pecked Dad on the cheek and glided out of the room, leaving the rest of them to sit there and stare at each other in stunned silence. Then Bobby broke out laughing, which caused the rest of them to go – not because anything was particularly funny, but because he put his whole self into laughing, his face disappearing under squinty eyes and his bushy beard. 

When they all calmed down, he said, “I get dibs on going on a pie run. And Dean gets to be the official pie-wrangler.” 

“Let’s hope some makes it home,” Sam said, getting up to clear the plates. 

Dad had a sour look, and Bobby said, “Come on now. He’s been good. I’ll be his parole officer.” 

Dad _harrumph_ -ed, but didn’t say anything, just went into the kitchen. Dean gaped helplessly, eyes going from Bobby to the kitchen, and back again. 

“Don’t you pay him any mind, boy,” Bobby said. “Come on now. Your mom will be wanting her pie.” 

They went to Biggerson’s. The place was crowded with a late dinner rush overlapping the high school and college kids who were just there to hang out. It was weird to see all the groups in Lawrence squished together like that – the college kids and the family types. That was what passed for diversity in a town like this. 

Bobby got two pies – one chocolate and one cherry. On the way out, Dean spotted a lone figure sitting in the farthest corner. Mussed hair, papers spread out all over the table, one cup of coffee in front of him. It was Castiel. Bobby followed Dean’s eyes, and then nodded. 

“I’ll be in the car,” he said. 

“Thanks, Bobby.” 

He went over to the booth and stood there waiting for Castiel to notice him. If he did, he didn’t make any indication until Dean cleared his throat and said hello. At that, Castiel looked up. A bruise covered most of his face like a mask, accented with the strawberry bump of a scrape on his cheek. In addition to that, his neck was marked up with an entirely different kind of bruise. A closer look revealed that the pinkie and ring fingers on his right hand were taped together. 

“Jesus, Cas,” Dean said, sliding into the other side of the booth. 

“Hello, Dean.” 

“What happened to you?” 

Castiel shrugged. “Same shit, different day, as the saying goes.” 

“Whatever it is that you do, you’ve got to stop it,” Dean said. “You’re too good for this nonsense.”

The look Castiel gave him could have shattered glass. 

“I mean it,” Dean said. “And I meant it when I had Sam come tell you I’m not mad at you or anything. I hope you’re not mad at me.” 

“Go away, Dean. You don’t need to be friends with me. Go hang out with Anna or Garth or – anyone. Just not me.” 

Dean leaned forward, his hands clasped together, his jaw clenched tight. “Quit trying to tell me who I should be friends with. I want to be friends with you. As it happens, I like you. Not like that,” he said at Castiel’s raised, skeptical eyebrow. “But as a person. As a friend. And I don’t want to ditch you. I want you to want something better for yourself.” 

“Do you really think you can know me like that? Let’s say we were hanging out, and I had some guy with me. What would you do if we started holding hands or kissing or something?” Castiel’s voice was a low hiss like a slow-leaking radiator that had been overworked in hot sun. 

“Well, I’ll never know, it seems,” Dean hissed back, “because you just give it up to dudes at the park and resist every time I try to be nice to you.” 

The truth was, it might have freaked him out a little. Actually, it would definitely freak him out. He would definitely not know how to deal with something like Castiel making out with a dude in front of him. But he knew enough to keep it inside. 

Dean slid out of the booth. “Look, Bobby’s waiting for me. I’ll be in touch as soon as I can.” 

“Yeah, okay,” Castiel said. Dean counted it as a win. 

Before going out to Bobby’s car, he stopped by the cash register and dug out a five-dollar bill. He asked the waitress to bring Castiel a piece of pie. He needed so much more, but that was about all Dean could do.   
***

The house was quiet without Bobby, but he had business to attend to back in Sioux Falls. Dean could have used a buffer between himself and Dad, but that wasn’t in the cards. Maybe Dad was too far gone and Bobby wouldn’t have been able to intercede. Dad leaned on Dean in the next few days, getting on him about leaving his shoes in the living room or being a couple minutes late in the morning or not jumping up fast enough to help Mom with groceries or generally anything he could manage to snipe at Dean about. He bore it with as much dignity as he could, but it grated on him. Mom tried to talk him down, but it was no good. 

“He’s just worried because he was wild before he joined the Marines,” she said. 

Dean hoped she never found out why Dad was still so pissed at him. 

It all left him exhausted. If he wasn’t doing chores for Dad, then it was the tension of having someone mad at him all the time and constantly disappointed in him. He knew that he was due for another wave of his weird vision-dreams again, and he was right. He was too tired to dream for real, but those whatever-they-were didn’t conform to any convention like that. It was like something wanted him to see the other world, as it wasn’t like the old ones. He experienced those like memories or like he was living them himself. But these, without his counterpart, were purposeful. He was locked out, unable to make himself known. He wasn’t even really there, after all. 

There were three in rapid succession, three nights in a row. Always it was Sam and Castiel in their secret lair, studying and arguing. The first one nearly culminated in a fistfight, arguing over how to hunt the thing that did this and get Dean back. 

In the second one, Sam was asleep on the couch with a book open on his chest. Castiel stood by the window and drank straight from a bottle of whiskey. The moonlight came in, bluish white, and washed his face in the eerie glow. Sam stirred and sat up, asked if he was okay. 

“What do you think?” he asked, voice hoarse. 

“We’ll get him back,” Sam said. 

“It’s been a month,” Castiel said. 

Dean awoke with such a start, his heart pounding, that he fell off his bed and into an inelegant pile on the floor. His sheets were twisted around his legs. 

A month had passed in that other world, and Dean had no way of telling his other self about it. His other self might be dead. 

The sight of Castiel, human now and drinking straight from a bottle of whiskey, flattened Dean. He didn’t have a whole picture from what he had seen before, so he didn’t know about this development. That kept him up. What he did know was that if it was the other way around – as it had been in times past – Dean would be the one staring out the window and drinking whiskey straight from the bottle. 

But then the third one was out of sequence and out of time. He knew because he was there, seeing his other self – that other man he had now met, who he couldn’t help but admire and fear. He was on the road with Castiel, Sam left back at the home base. They were in a shitty motel and they were drinking like it was an Olympic sport and then Dean had this realization – other Dean, badass demon hunter – that he loved Castiel in ways he could never fully articulate. Nothing changed except the air, and he looked at Castiel, really and truly looked at him. The other man met his gaze, steady and sure. 

“Finally,” Castiel said with the barest hint of a smile. 

“Shut up,” Dean said. 

He woke up with a raging boner and a sense of shame that would impress a Catholic. He tried to put it out of his mind, tried to take care of it and think of Anna instead, but he lost the battle. 

Downstairs, Dad was already mostly done with his coffee. He furrowed his brow when he saw Dean. 

“You okay, son?” 

“Yeah, fine. Just – hot. It’s hot, you know?” 

“I guess. Your face is all red.” 

No one likes to hear that. “Yeah, I was kind of tossing and turning. Won’t stop me from drinking some coffee.” 

“I’d be really worried about you if it did.” 

What stuck with Dean the rest of the day was not the fact that this confirmed what he already knew. Rather, he was preoccupied with the idea of what he didn’t see. He wanted to know how far it went, if it was just a mutual acknowledgement that they had passed friendship a few exits back or if they had actually consummated it. And with it all, he knew – whoever was pulling the strings on this one wasn’t going to let him see.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It all comes crashing down in one night when Dean's grounding ends. He goes to a party, then goes to see Cas. He finds out that Cas is up to some shenanigans. Then, Dean's idyllic apple-pie life comes to a screeching halt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Graphic depictions of violence, implied inappropriate relations with a minor.

July finally ended, and with it, Dean’s confinement. Dad granted it grudgingly, and Dean could tell that it had been Mom’s doing. Had it been up to John Winchester, Dean would have spent the rest of his natural life cleaning salvage parts and windows, helping Mom with chores, or whatever. He didn’t hear anything from Anna and he didn’t try to see her. 

He called Garth to see what was up, and Garth invited him over to a “soiree” while his mom was out of town again. Dean asked Mom if he could go and she said yes. Normally she would tell him to ask Dad, but she didn’t do that this time, instead asking if he thought the party would be too crazy. He said no and she said he had to take Sam. After three weeks of seeing little else but the shop and the house, he couldn’t say yes fast enough. 

Sam tried to hide his sheer joy over being invited to a high school party a full month before he was even in high school, and he did a terrible job of it, his mouth twitching at the corners and his body generally taking on a vibration that made a nearby end table rattle. 

“You want to ask Jessica?” Dean said. 

“You think I could?” 

He remembered Garth’s whiskey-soaked embrace from the beginning of summer. “I don’t think he’ll even notice.” 

Dean had to admit, he was pretty excited himself. He wondered if Anna would be there, and he thought about calling her, but then decided, you know what? Who gives a fuck? If she was there, whatever. He’d stay in the corner with Sam and Jessica and have done with it. If she wasn’t there, even fucking better. 

This whole get-together was much less of a rager than the other one had been. Dean and Sam arrived early after getting Jessica and going on a trip to the store for a couple two-liter bottles of Coke and bags of chips. Mom absolutely would not let them leave without promising they wouldn’t show up empty-handed. Dean didn’t have the heart to explain that this wasn’t the sort of affair that necessitated gifts of food. Mom had that earnest line between her eyebrows, the same one Sammy got when he was riding his wave of sensitivity. 

Garth was already pretty toasted by the time they got there, and he shook Sammy’s hand with undue violence. “Baby Winchester,” he said, though Sam was nearly a head taller than him. “It is an honor, man. A true honor.” He turned his rosy-cheeked attention to Jessica. “And you are Baby Winchester’s little lady.” 

“Most people call me Jessica,” she said. “In fact, all people call me that.” 

“Jessica,” he said, taking her hand and kissing it. “Absolutely.” 

There was something at work other than simple alcohol, Dean was sure of it. Whatever it was, it made things that much more entertaining. 

Deeper into the house, a few people were gathered around the coffee table. Dean recognized most of them from school, grateful to see that Meg and Ruby’s sneering faces were absent. Anna’s was not, and when she caught sight of Dean, she moved a little further behind the couch. He rolled his eyes and waved; she responded by ducking her head and hiding behind her hair. It didn’t matter. Sam, Dean, and Jessica took a spot on the far end of the circle and a bottle of something amber-colored was being passed around. Sam looked at Dean, nervous, before taking a sip of it and giggling. Jessica punched him in the arm and called him a pussy before taking a swig that would have put down a biker. Dean gaped at her, thoroughly impressed, before taking a small sip himself. It was just what he needed – something warm to fuzz up the edges of the room, but not enough to put him under or make him unable to drive. 

The conversation swirled around him – talk of school, classes, teachers they liked and did not like. (Mr. Alastair was in the latter group, Dean was happy to note.) They talked of their vacations, with the most exotic destination being Niagra Falls, which Becky had visited in late June. Garth had gone to Oklahoma to visit relatives and Chuck had made it as far as St. Louis. The rest of them hadn’t gone anywhere. Then talk turned to other people at school, and Dean knew whose name was about to come up. 

It didn’t take long. Becky brought him up, leaning in and hissing in a loud whisper about that weird little sophomore kid, Castiel. What the hell kind of name was that, anyway? And did you hear that he was once a Satanist in Chicago? Anna caught Dean’s eye and blushed as red as her hair, looking away quickly. No one else noticed, thank God. But it seemed to invoke Castiel like a spirit of some kind – or an angel, he thought to himself in a rush that couldn’t keep itself behind any kind of mental gate. The conversation went on about how weird and white trash he was, how he was smart but naïve, how this person heard this thing and another heard something else. The truth was nowhere in there. It was comical, really. The truth about Castiel was that he was gay and that he went searching for dick in the park and he had no parents to speak of. The truth, for once, was better than rumor – and no one seemed to have any idea. The mere thought of rumor was better than the fact of reality. 

The conversation moved on to someone else, but Dean’s ears were still ringing and he couldn’t hear it. 

He got up after a while and said his parents would want him home. Sam looked up at him, surprised, but he got it. 

“Yeah,” Sam said. “Our Mom gets worried.” 

Everyone nodded. Their moms would be worrying soon too. 

Dean said his goodbyes, eyes lingering on Anna, her long legs tucked under her. She waved but didn’t get up to try and talk to him, for which he was grateful. He couldn’t have dealt with her. Not that night, and maybe not ever again. 

Garth saw them all to the door, once again kissing Jessica’s hand effusively before pulling Sam and Dean in for an excruciating bear hug. 

“You guys are really great,” he said, eyes glassy. Dean never did find out what he was on. “I am so glad you came.” 

“Thanks for having us, man,” Dean said, clapping him on the back. “Be sure to drink some water later, okay?” 

“Water, yes, water,” Garth said. 

Dean let Robert Plant speak for him in the car, turning up his music and rolling down the windows. Jessica sat in the back, close to the edge of her seat, running her fingers through Sam’s hair and smiling. Dean was a little grossed out by it, but ultimately, he had to admit it was kind of cute. If he completely divorced himself from the situation and ignored the fact that his brother getting all gooey with a girl rated up there with bleeding ulcers and oozing sores in terms of shit that was disgusting. 

They dropped Jessica off and Dean waited in the car while Sam canoodled with her for like five straight minutes. She sat on the trunk of the car to get better leverage, kissing Sam and letting her hands roam a little bit. The part of him that couldn’t help but pick at scabs and examine them idly wondered if she and Sam had had sex. 

Finally, Sam floated back into the car and smiled. Dean rolled his eyes. 

“Gross. Grosser than gross. Foul.” 

“Whatever, jerk.” 

They started back home, and maybe it had been a foregone conclusion all along, but he found himself driving to Castiel’s house. 

“We’re going to see him, aren’t we?” Sam asked. 

Dean’s jaw clenched, his teeth grinding together, his eyes narrowing. “You want me to drop you off somewhere?” 

Sam sighed that bitchy little sigh he had. “No, it’s fine. I just wish – I don’t know. It’s fine.” 

“You just wish, huh? And what is it that you wish?” 

“Nothing. Forget I said anything.” 

“Do you have something to say, Sammy? If you do, fucking say it. Don’t tiptoe around me.” 

“I got nothing,” Sam said, shaking his head. “It’s no skin off my nose if you break up with Anna, barely talk to her at this party, and then on your first day of freedom you go straight over to this dude’s house. That’s all you, man.” 

“Fuck you.” 

“Yeah, fuck me, whatever,” Sam said, staring out the window. 

Dean pulled up to Castiel’s house, and there was a sleek black car out front. For a thrilling, terrifying moment, he thought Castiel’s mom must be home. But then he realized the car was an Audi convertible, and there was no way Castiel’s mom drove that unless she hit it really big in Reno. 

“Oh shit,” he said. 

Sam nodded. “Do you – I mean – should we still go in?” 

Dean swallowed, his throat dry and metallic. “I honestly don’t know.”

Then the door opened and an older blond man stepped out. He was tall and thin, dressed in dark clothes that hung on his frame with a certain metropolitan ease that one didn’t often see in a place like Lawrence. He lingered on the front steps, laughing, his hands in the pockets of his trousers. Castiel stood in the doorway, leaned on it in such a casual way that he looked almost normal. Instead of his usual uniform of ill-fitting flannel and jeans, he was wearing a t-shirt. He still wore jeans, but they actually fit, slung low on his slim hips. 

Dean got out of the car while Sam whispered protests, finally getting out of the car himself and trailing behind, trying to get Dean to keep away. 

“Oh my, what do we have here? It would appear I have come far too early,” the man said. His voice was high and British. Up close, Dean saw his face was deeply lined. 

Castiel stiffened at the sight of Sam and Dean, straightened where he stood, crossed his arms over his chest. The t-shirt he wore, Dean noticed, was dark gray and tight. 

“Is it a bad time? I’m out on good behavior, thought I’d come by,” Dean said. “Didn’t think you’d have company.” 

“You’re not my only friend, even if you like to think you are,” Castiel said. 

“Now, now,” the older guy said, wagging a finger. “Don’t fight, boys. Or if you do, at least take off your shirts and make a good show of it.” 

“I’m sorry,” Sam said, grabbing Dean’s arm and pulling him as hard as he could. Dean didn’t budge. “We’ll go – we were just – we had been over at Garth’s – didn’t plan it – didn’t have time to call.” 

“I was just leaving,” the smarmy British asshole said. “Unfortunately. Castiel, I’ll be in touch.”

Castiel nodded, and the man made his way down the front walk, his hips swaying like tulles, his dress shoes snapping on the cracked concrete. He hummed a little tune and got into his car. As soon as he turned it on, a thumping blast of club music rattled the silence. A light came on in a house across the street. Dean and Sam watched the car, entranced, as it squealed around a corner and roared into the night. 

“Who the hell was that?” Dean asked when the shock subsided. 

Castiel rolled his eyes. “A friend.” 

“Sure. A friend who dresses like a mannequin and looks to be about forty—”

“He’s thirty-eight.” 

“Right. And drives a freakin’ Audi convertible.”

Castiel shifted, leaned against the door again, crossed one ankle over the other and flexed his bare toes on the Linoleum. The bones cracked in the renewed silence. “Look, Dean, I told you the score—”

“You told me diddly squat.” 

“All right, but I gave you enough to go on. You’re not as dumb as you pretend to be sometimes. Anyway, that’s Balthasar. He’s a friend. If you don’t like it, fine. You don’t have to be friends with him.”

“I definitely do not want to be friends with that guy. He might actually be older than my dad.” 

Castiel rolled his eyes. “I am pretty sure your dad is older than thirty-eight.” 

“Oh, please. I’m pretty sure Balthasar is older than thirty-eight, too.” 

“Dean, we’re leaving,” Sam said. 

Dean had sort of forgotten Sam was there. He turned to him, surprised, and saw that his brother was very serious and very pissed. If he tipped over into real anger, he might tell on Dean, which wouldn’t be any good at all. 

“I’m sorry, Castiel,” Sam said, pulling Dean by the arm. “It was good seeing you, though. Maybe – maybe we can hang out soon, you know?” 

Castiel nodded at the ground. “Yeah, I’d like that.” 

Sam pulled Dean to the car and Dean stood there with his key out, ready to unlock the door. He stared back at the house, at Castiel still framed in the rectangle of yellow light spilling out from inside the house. He was mostly a silhouette, only his pale face and feet showing in any clarity. 

They drove home in silence, not even bothering with the stereo. Sam tried to talk, but Dean just shook his head and he shut up. 

When they pulled up to the house, it was completely dark, which was unusual. It was only eleven-thirty. Dad went to sleep pretty early, but Mom always stayed up late reading or watching TV. There was not necessarily a good reason for the hard stone that seemed to form in the pit of Dean’s stomach, but it was there nonetheless, making him feel like he had done something wrong in addition to eating something past its prime. 

It didn’t help matters when Sam whispered, “That’s kind of weird.” 

Dean wished his other self was there. That guy would know what to do. 

“Should we call the police?” 

“Nah, that’s taking it too far. They probably just crashed early,” Dean said, more to convince himself than Sam. 

It was a strange thing. Lawrence was a long way from any realm of mysticism or nature. It was a very concrete place, in general, Dean thought. And yet here he was bumping up against an intangible and undeniable sense of instinct. Like someone sensing rain, he knew in the very cells of his body that his parents were not all right. But what could he do? He and Sam couldn’t call the cops on a bare hunch and a bad feeling, nor could they stay in the car for the rest of their lives. 

They made their way inside and it was utterly dark and silent. Of course it was. Mom’s latest read lay face-up on the coffee table, a pinkish-peach cover with gold writing on it. She was about halfway through it. 

Sam grabbed the baseball bat they kept in the hall closet as they went upstairs, slowly, silently. Dad had guns in the basement, but he kept the keys to the gun case somewhere on his person at all times. Anyway, neither he nor Sammy was a particularly good shot. That was Dad’s affair. Dean knew that whatever awaited them upstairs would not be defeated with a baseball bat, but the last thing he needed was to talk crazy on top of all this shit, so he shut up and walked in front of Sam up the stairs. 

As he went, his heart seemed to pump one message through to his brain along with blood: _Don’t go up there. Don’t go up there._ But he had to. If anything had happened to them, it was all on him. 

They stood at the top of the stairs, listened close. Silence. There wasn’t even the sound of distant traffic or the hum of the fridge downstairs. The stillness was what really got Dean. The house was always bustling or moving. With four people, two of them being teenage boys, there was always something going on. But now, there wasn’t even the rustle of movement or the creaking of the house. 

The bedroom door was ajar, no lights on, only the streetlight from outside filtering in. 

“You stay here,” Dean whispered, his voice sickeningly loud. 

“No,” Sam said. 

Dean turned to him and gripped his arms. “Yes. You – you’re the one with the baseball bat. You have to stay out here.” 

He knew what he would find, and he knew it had to be him. His little brother didn’t need to see it. 

There must have been some kind of deep desperation in Dean’s eyes, some urgency in his voice that got to Sam, because he nodded and said okay. He positioned himself at the top of the stairs, bat at the ready. 

Dean pushed the door in, and sighed in relief. There John and Mary Winchester were, in bed, sleeping. It was the same scene Dean remembered from countless birthdays and Christmases and Easters and Saturday mornings – Mom’s white nightgown and Dad’s old USMC t-shirt and the quilt that Grandma Campbell had made. But then he saw: The arcs of blood across the picture frame above the bed. The sheets dripping with it, twin puddles on the floor on either side. Their eyes were open and glassy, not closed and peaceful. 

Dean fell onto all fours, heaving until he threw up. He heard Sammy moving out on the landing, and real panic overtook him then. He scrambled to his feet and slammed the door, blocked it with his body, and stood there in the room with his dead parents. Sam pounded on the door, yelling with increasing hysteria. 

“I have to see them, Dean,” he yelled, his voice thick with tears. “Open the fucking door. I have to see them.” 

“No, Sammy. No.” Dean had his hands splayed out on the door, his fingernails scraping against the wood.   
***

Some interminable amount of time passed and then there were red and blue lights sweeping outside, the sound of sirens. There was a forceful pounding on the door, and a woman’s voice. 

“Dean, it’s Sherriff Mills. You need to let me in the room, okay?” 

“Is Sam out there?” 

“No, he’s talking to one of my officers.”

“He can’t see this. I can’t let him.” 

“I know. I’ll make sure he doesn’t. Can you let me in?” 

“They’re dead, Sherriff.” 

“I know, Dean. We’re going to help you as best we can, okay? But you need to move away from the door and let me in here.” 

He staggered away from the door and she came in, gasping when she saw what had been done. Even in the dim light, Dean saw tears prickling her eyes. 

“You did great, Dean,” she said, steering him out of the room. “You don’t need to watch them anymore.” 

He took one last look at his parents. Dad’s face was slack and calm and Mom’s was twisted up in terror. He didn’t want to remember them like this. He wanted to remember Dad’s loving scowl and Mom’s wide smile. He wanted to remember the way Dad would pull him close and shake him a little when he was proud of something Dean did, or the way mom would envelop him completely when she hugged him. He didn’t want to remember them like this, their faces like masks, their skin white and rubbery. And yet, the sight was burned into his mind. 

Sherriff Mills led him downstairs to where an officer was sitting with Sam on the couch. Sam was white-faced and silent. Dean sat down next to him and there was no indication that Sam registered his presence. The cop asked him something and Dean nodded even though he wasn’t entirely sure what the cop had asked. From somewhere far away, someone said that Mike was on his way and that Bobby had been notified. Dean didn’t care.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean tries to deal with the tragedy, tries to mourn, but he cannot. The same culprit makes itself known along with its intentions. He gets help from a somewhat unexpected source.

The next days passed, and that is all that can be said of them. Bobby came down, driving in one go, and he was there late the next day. The first night, they had stayed with Mike, in his little two-bedroom heap. None of them had slept. Bobby got there and took a little bit of action, renting out a couple rooms at the local soulless “extended stay” motel. At least it was one of the classier ones, for businesspeople or folks working with the university and not the people who had fallen on hard times. It had a kitchenette and a bedroom and another attached by one of those weird double doors that doesn’t have a handle on both sides. There were two beds in there, which was where Sam and Dean stayed, laying flat on their backs and saying nothing. 

Dean had that metallic taste in his mouth like the flu was imminent, complete with nausea and a persistent headache, but he never threw up. For this, he was grateful. The idea of moving was as unappealing as vomiting itself. 

Anna tried to come see them, but Dean stopped just short of slamming the door in her face. Bobby went out and caught her as she went down the stairs, crying, and talked to her in a low voice. Dean didn’t ask what he said, but he looked grimmer than the new usual. Dean ate a piece of toast – all he could manage to stomach – and went back into the bedroom. 

There was endless questioning and trips to the police. There was a funeral. There was a whole town paying their respects and the media and legal talk. There were conversations about money and custody and in the middle of all that, someone remembered Dean was supposed to start his senior year and Sam was supposed to start as a freshman in just over three weeks and everyone knew that wasn’t going to fucking happen. 

Everyone was walking around with their thumbs lodged in their asses, asking Dean and Sam if their parents had any enemies, if they had met anyone new recently, if they had any cash laying around that people would know about. The murder of John and Mary Winchester sparked speculation and investigation, horror and fear. Only Dean knew what had done it, and he wouldn’t tell anyone, not even Sammy. It was a demon. It wasn’t a human. It was the demon that had brought the other Dean into this reality. 

But he wouldn’t tell. Psychologists were already circling like vultures, taking Dean and Sam separately into brightly-colored and dimly-lit offices with cheerful flower paintings on the walls. They asked them to talk about how they felt about what they were going through. Dean was sure that Sammy had been more vocal than he, but all he could manage to say for himself was that it hurt worse than anything ever had. In the back of his mind, always, like static on a flimsy radio transmission, was the crackle of the thought that a demon had killed his parents. It was the truth, and it was the absolute worst truth. He couldn’t in a million years even contemplate telling the shrinks that. Or worse, the police. This was what it was like, then, to know the absolute truth of something. He had never known anything so fully and so horribly. He knew one time that Dad had driven him and Sam home after a Jayhawks baseball game drunk. He knew the stuff about Castiel. He knew Sam liked to jerk off to lesbian hippie porn. But those things didn’t matter. If he told those things, he’d just be a jerk for betraying confidence and upsetting some apple carts. It wouldn’t get him tossed in a mental ward. And that was what he had to avoid – being locked up. He couldn’t tell, because he couldn’t get locked up, because if he got locked up, he wouldn’t be able to take his revenge.   
***

After the detectives and the psychologists, there was a knock on the door of the motel room. Bobby was at the old house and Sam was off somewhere. Dean had been stewing in solitude, letting the numbness wash over him. 

He looked through the peephole and there stood two women. One was shorter and stockier, with close-cropped blond hair. The other wasn’t tall, exactly, but taller than her. This one had brown hair pulled into a braid. They wore boxy fed suits, but their faces were hard and their eyes betrayed the cavernous marks of too many sights seen. 

“FBI,” one said, holding up a badge. 

Dean opened the door. 

“Agents Currie and Jett. May we come in?” 

Dean rolled his eyes. “Agents Currie and Jett? You’re hunters.” 

They both raised their eyebrows in unison, and the shorter of the two leaned forward. “Hunters?” 

Dean stepped back, held his arm out. “Come in.” 

They glanced at each other and came inside, immediately shedding their blazers. 

“Well, I guess we can skip the song and dance,” blondie said. “I’m Gertrude and this is Jodie.”

“Pleasure to meet you.” He shook their hands. “Dean Winchester.” 

Gertrude nodded. “We figured. So sorry for your loss. Any idea what might have been responsible?” 

Dean invited them to sit, offered them instant coffee and leftover coffee cake. They accepted, sitting on the couch. He knew his mom would want him to treat them with hospitality, fake federal agents or whatever else. 

“It was a demon,” he said when he sat down. 

“How do you know?” Jodie asked. “Was there a smell of sulfur? Electrical disruptions?” 

“I couldn’t smell any sulfur. All I could smell was my parents’ blood.” 

Jodie shifted in her seat, white-knuckled her coffee mug. One thing Dean knew from his glimpses into the other Dean Winchester’s life was that people didn’t often get into hunting just because. They had personal stakes in it. He wondered who Jodie knew. 

“Where are you guys based?” he asked. “No chance it’s Topeka, is there?”

“Eugene, Oregon, mostly,” Gertrude said. “But we were tracking a polygamist vamp nest up in Utah and caught wind of this one.” 

“Wow. Those Mormons sure know how to pile on the crazy.” 

“You’re telling me. It’s hard enough getting a Coke in that fair land, never mind getting some whiskey to put in it,” Gertrude said. Jodie kicked her ankle and she cleared her throat. “As you were saying?” 

“Anyway, if you ask around Topeka, you might find a guy who is also named Dean Winchester and looks a hell of a lot like me. And you might discover that he’s been tracking this thing.” 

“How do we know this is accurate intel?” Jodie asked. 

Dean shrugged. “You don’t, I guess. But you’ve probably investigated on less, am I right?”

“A fair point,” she said. 

They stood up, shook hands again, offered their condolences once more. He hoped the other Dean was still knocking around Topeka, tracking the evil bag of dicks that did this. 

***  
It took another week or so to get down to the brass tacks of it all, but the bottom line was that Sam and Dean Winchester were about to inherit a decent sum of money. It wasn’t enough to be set for life, but it was enough to ensure Sam got into a good college and Dean could . . . do whatever it was that Dean wanted to do. 

It didn’t even feel good to know that he had it. He thought about the tight times in their house, when Mom would pore over bills and Dad would pace around the kitchen. Sometimes things were slow at the shop; sometimes appliances crapped out and there went two grand. But overall, Dad made okay money and it wasn’t like anyone in the house had a car payment. 

The house was covered under mortgage insurance and preparations were being made to sell it. Neither Sam nor Dean wanted anything to do with it. It was already known as the Winchester Murder House, and the thought of spending his life or maybe even raising his own family there made him physically ill. The house would be sold, then. No one knew what to do about the shop. Mike came over a couple nights, knocking down some beers and crunching numbers with Bobby, the end result being that neither wanted to admit that Mike would have to take on a new partner who didn’t know his particular ways, or he would have to fold. Mike and Bobby had met over the years, but were kindred spirits only in the sense that both were curmudgeons. They knew the score of what it was like to bring in someone new for guys like them. 

Dean woke up one morning and said to Bobby, “I want the Impala. Save the Dart for Sam or sell it or whatever. I want the Impala.” 

Bobby smoothed out his moustache and ran a hand over his beard. He toyed with the handle on his coffee mug. “All right. Seems fair.” Whether it was indulgence or a belief in a young man’s birthright, Dean did not know and did not care. 

They went over that day and took the cover off her. Dean ran his fingers along the chrome piping around the windows, along the curved details of the trunk. He felt his father’s spirit in the car, his determination and meticulousness. Driving the car felt like the only familiar thing in his life, even though he had never done it before.   
***

He should have been more suspicious, he realized later. Demons weren’t creatures of randomness or one-time bouts of terror. They liked to prolong it, stretch it out, get creative with it. But how could he ever anticipate that things could get worse than both his parents having their throats cut? 

But it could get worse, and it did. 

He was standing outside, near the Dumpster at the motel. The air in the room got too heavy sometimes. Sam had taken to sitting for hours on the couch with the TV on, Bobby sitting at the dining table. The room was too small for everyone’s grief. So Dean had gone outside, even though it was August and the thunderstorms were starting up and the air outside was like a thick, pulsing presence of its own. 

He was just standing there, staring off into the vastness beyond, when a strong arm was around his chest and the cold edge of a knife was at his throat. 

“If you scream, I will cut Sam and Bobby like I did your parents, and this time, I’m going to make you watch. Do you understand?” 

The voice was female, technically, but twisted and smelted with insanity and cruelty. 

He nodded and the knife scraped at his throat. 

“Do you have the keys to that fancy-ass whip of yours?” 

“Yes.” 

“Good. Let’s go for a ride, sweet cheeks.” 

She took the knife from his throat, walking close enough behind him that he smelled the sulfur around her and the metallic smell of craziness. 

He glanced up at the windows of his temporary home. The curtains were drawn, as they had been for the past week that they had been there. There was a futile, fleeting hope that either Bobby or Sam would be looking out for him, but it wasn’t the case. The tip of the knife poked through his t-shirt and he averted his eyes. 

“You’re smart. I like that. I’ve met versions of you that – wow. I’m astonished those guys didn’t drown in their own toilets.” 

His heart pounded in his chest, reverberating. Other versions of him? How many were there? And, more importantly, how many had she terrorized like this?

He got in the Impala and started it up, drove out onto the main road. She instructed him to go to the old railyard and that was where he went. As they drove through town, there was evidence of late summer all over. It was hazy and hot, high thick clouds overhead. Yards and porches were filled with sweltering people in lawn chairs and porch swings, fanning themselves. Little kids, oblivious to the impending rain, splashed in sprinklers and hoses and shallow plastic pools, their swimsuits bright neon against the bleached yellow grass. 

“I like this reality,” the demon said. “You guys have it good here. You should see the one where Mitt Romney is president. That pot is fixing to boil over, and make no mistake. But you guys – you’re quaint. I like that sometimes, you know? Only to visit, of course. You can’t really have much fun in a reality like this, long-term. The strings won’t allow for it, you know?” 

No, he didn’t fucking know what she meant by this gibberish. 

He slammed on the brakes as a red ball bounced into the road and a little boy in blue shorts darted after it, waving as he did. The demon smiled and waved back with her hand that wasn’t still clutching a knife and aiming the business end toward all Dean’s vital organs. 

“That Paul Ryan, though. I can’t wait ‘til we get him in the pit.” She shuddered happily. “The things I’m going to do to him . . . I better put in a request soon for first dibs. You don’t want sloppy seconds. And where I’m from, boy howdy, seconds can get really fucking sloppy.” 

Dean didn’t know who Paul Ryan was, but he hoped for his sake that the man had a change of heart and started a dog rescue or something, if his fate involved this critter and her pointy toys. 

Dean knew that back at the motel, Bobby would just be noticing that he had been gone far too long. He’d see that the Impala was gone and Dean was nowhere in sight. He’d spend the next few hours worrying and vacillating between calling the cops or leaving it be, letting Dean blow off steam. He might think that Dean had gone to Castiel’s, and the thought of the other boy made his fingertips go cold despite the heat. He might never see Castiel again, might never get the chance to tell him how much he meant to him.

At the railyard, she had him pull in and park behind a huge, fallen tree, obscuring the car. He got out and she followed him close. Then, without warning, she clocked him hard across the back of the head. He fell to his knees, a wrenching pain shooting through his leg as he hit the hard ground, and then everything went dark.   
***

He woke again, tied to a chair in a boxcar. The doors were closed and part of the roof was rusted out and gaping, empty. It didn’t let much light in and the space was horrifyingly confined. He struggled uselessly against the ropes and tried to yell before realizing that his mouth had been taped shut. 

The demon was sitting in a chair across from him, picking at her fingernails with the tip of her knife. She had coppery hair spilling over her shoulders in loose curls, and she was small, her hips thin and boxy, her chest mostly flat. 

“I know,” she said, “this meat suit isn’t ideal. But the strings only allow for certain carcasses to pass through the portals, and this was one of them. I burned through so many of these fuckers before getting it right. That was a bitch and a half.” 

He turned his head and felt the dusty streak of dried blood crack on the back of his neck. It itched in the sweaty heat. To his side, there was a camping stove rigged with a stockpot filled with steaming liquid and a cart with a variety of scalpels, pliers, and clamps lined up. None of this was looking good from where he sat. 

The demon followed his gaze with her eyes, smiling and getting up. She went to the pot and put her hand in, letting her fingers play in the water like it was a babbling brook. Then she took a tin cup from the tray and dipped it in the water, bringing it over to Dean. 

“It’s a pale comparison to what holy water feels like to my kind,” she said, “but it will get the point across. Anyway, when I’m done with you, you’ll be begging me for this. This will be like a vacation.” 

She tipped out the cup of water onto Dean’s lap and he screamed under the duct tape as the scalding heat soaked through his jeans and splashed onto his legs. The denim didn’t cool him, either, instead holding the heat and leaving it to soak on his skin before finally dissipating. Tears streamed from his eyes. 

He had never felt such an amalgamation of every negative emotion – fear, hatred, grief, anger. The worst part wasn’t even that he was going to die. The worst part, by far, was that he was going to die and Sam and Bobby would never know what happened. They would think he had run away or killed himself or been got by the same person who killed their parents. And that last part would be true, but they would never know how terrifying that truth was.

“The other you I’ve been working with recently is much hardier than you. Look at your candy ass – first little bit of torture and here come the waterworks,” she said, straddling his scalded lap and grinding against him. She carded her fingers through his hair, ran her thumb over the duct tape where his lips were. 

This calm, this sultry intimacy, was broken as suddenly as it had begun. She hopped off his lap and struck him hard across the side of the face, right on the cheek. He felt her hard knuckles cracking against the bones of his face. 

“Good thing I can’t really feel pain. If I left this bitch now, her hand would feel like it got slammed in a car door. You’ve got a hard head, you little shit,” she said. 

All he wanted to know was _why_. Why was she doing this to him? He wouldn’t be okay with it, could never be okay with it, but if he just knew why, he thought he might be able to at least work through it. 

Blood trickled down his face and traveled down the duct tape, settling in the crease where the tape met his skin. He could smell his own blood and it made him sick to his stomach. He had to fight to keep from puking, because this couldn’t get much worse, but sitting there with a swampy mouthful of vomit would do the trick. 

She went behind him and it sent him into a blind panic, frantically trying to turn and see her. If he saw her, he might be able to brace himself, but with her behind him, he had nothing. Then her hands were around his neck, massaging his throat. He tried to wrench his head from her grasp, but he couldn’t. There was no point to even trying. Her hands tightened and then were removed and then something firm but pliable was around his neck. She tightened and tightened, and everything started to slip away. It went gray then white then black. 

Next thing he knew, he was being doused with cold water and spluttering awake. He didn’t know how long had passed. An hour? A part of an hour? At least the water had rinsed off the blood and he no longer smelled it. 

“Wakey wakey, little man!” she said, coming over to brace herself on his legs where she had scalded him earlier. There was the gentle pop of skin tearing on a blister. She sat there, playing with his hair and fussing with his t-shirt. 

Without looking, she reached over to the tray and selected a scalpel. She idly crisscrossed his arms with it, opening the skin enough to let blood bead and trickle out in a thin rivulet. She hopped off his lap and pulled one of those yellow plastic lemons from one of the shelves. He tried to talk and plead, pulling at the ropes, frantic and hyperventilating. With a steady smile, she flicked the cap open and squeezed the contents onto his skin. 

As he screamed, she talked over him, her voice loud and filling the boxcar. “Your other little buddy, he uses salt on us. This is a taste of what it feels like when he and his colleagues get hold of us.” 

She looked down, almost sadly. “He got hold of someone I loved very much,” she said. “He tortured her for information and then he killed her.” 

She made it sound so innocent. He wondered what this other demon had done to get herself on his radar. 

She pressed her fingers into Dean’s burning cuts, her nails digging in. “I’ve been weaving my way through the universes, finding all the Dean Winchesters that I could, and fucking with them to the best of my abilities.” In the dim light, her eyes shone with pure insanity. “All through the strings, there are Dean Winchesters that have been so thoroughly mangled that I actually can’t believe myself. This shit takes a lot of time, you know? Traveling through the multiverse is tricky. But then again, not everyone has my abilities.” 

“Your only ability is being a pain in my fucking ass,” a voice growled from the top of the boxcar. 

The demon looked up, and she was hit square in the face with a stream of holy water. Her skin sizzled and reddened; it was like watching a time-lapse sunburn. She staggered backward and then she couldn’t move, could only stand there screaming. Work boots, then worn jeans, then the rest of badass demon hunter Dean Winchester appeared in the hole of the roof. He lowered himself down and dropped into the car, shaking up dust on the floorboards. 

“Clearly observation is not one of your abilities.” He pointed up. “Devil’s trap on the roof, you dumb bitch.” 

“I sent you flying,” she screamed. “How the fuck are you still here, you worthless cockroach?” 

“You missed your mark, hellskank.” 

Dean cried out a muffled scream and jerked in his chair. His counterpart turned to him. “Shit.” He untied Dean, ripped off the duct tape with quick efficiency. “You okay?” 

“No. I mean, I’ll live. But—”

“I know, kid. I’m sorry about – about punching you. And I heard about your parents. That shouldn’t have happened.” 

“Oh, now that was some serious sport. They fought like the dickens,” the demon said, laughing shrilly. The sound was like a lonely train whistle. 

“Shut up, bitch,” both Deans yelled. His older self looked at him, impressed, before crossing to the captive demon. The other Dean pulled a squirt gun from his jacket pocket and spritzed her face. Deep gashes sizzled in its wake. She whimpered incoherently. 

“You have to get out of here,” he said. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll take care of her. And then I’m going home.” 

“How the fuck are you going to manage that, dickbrain?” 

He turned back to her and opened up his jacket. Dean caught a glimpse of an old, black book. 

“I’ve dealt with some foolish witch-bitch demons in my day, but you take the fucking cake. If there is anything we’ve learned from watching crime shows, it is that a crazy person must also be smart. _You_ are crazy and careless, which is no way to go through life. Leaving your spell book in your totally not-secret lair? Honestly, this whole field trip you sent me on has just been a waste of my time.” 

She screamed in frustration and tried to lunge, but the invisible barrier kept her in her place. 

“I want to help,” Dean said, staggering up from where he sat. He had to keep hold of the chair to steady himself. 

He got the once-over from other Dean, skeptical eyes sweeping over his injuries. “You can help by getting yourself cleaned up and then going back to Sam and protecting him.”

“That’s bullshit. This bitch killed my parents. You went after the demon that killed _your_ parents.” 

His other self reached out and put his hand on Dean’s shoulder. “Kid, that was – that was a series of decisions that I don’t have time to explain. I will take care of her. She will pay. But you can’t do it. That sets you on this road that I don’t want to see you on. You need to get the fuck out of here, go back to Sammy, make sure he’s okay. You need to be there for him, okay? This bitch is toast. Don’t even worry about it. But you cannot be here for it.” 

Dean glared up at himself, and then softened. In his counterpart’s eyes, he saw the years wearing down on him, saw sadness and death and impossible decisions. Revenge might have been overrated. 

He nodded. “Are you sure you’ve got this?” 

“Hell yes.” 

Dean hurried to the car, peeled out of the hiding spot, and barreled toward the road. He drove back to town in giddy, adrenaline-spiked silence, jumpy and jerky and sometimes driving to fast, others too slow. 

He looked down at his arms, at the gashes scoring them. He couldn’t go back to the motel looking like this, couldn’t go there shaking and feeling like he’d just shotgunned a pot of coffee. 

He was at Castiel’s even before he knew that was where he was going. He pulled up to the sagging house, its peeling paint and overgrown yard an unexpected comfort among all of the recent strangeness. He got out of the car and staggered up the walk, pounded on the door. 

Castiel answered, wearing nothing but underwear and a t-shirt riddled with holes. The faded design on the front said _Go Jayhawks!_ in obnoxiously perky letters. 

“Jesus fuck, Dean, you knock like the police,” he said, rubbing his eyes. It should be noted that it was late in the afternoon, and not first thing in the morning. Castiel caught sight of Dean’s injuries and stepped back from the doorway, allowing him entry. 

Dean stumbled once inside, his arm dripping a couple droplets of blood onto the worn Linoleum in the foyer. The sound hit with a grisly wetness. 

“What happened, Dean?” 

Dean shook his head, overcome by pain and shock. 

Castiel didn’t ask any more questions, just took Dean by the shoulders and led him into the bathroom. He sat Dean down on the toilet and rummaged through the cabinets, coming up with a roll of gauze and some anti-bacterial spray. 

“It was a demon, wasn’t it?” Castiel asked. “That did this, that – that did that to your mom and dad?” 

This jarred Dean out of his settling stupor. He nodded. “She’s been chasing versions of me through different realities. Something about a hunter killing someone she loved.” 

Castiel just nodded and wet a washcloth. “This is going to sting,” he said, kneeling in front of Dean. 

He braced himself and Castiel wiped off his injuries as gingerly as he could. Dean didn’t even really feel it. Rather, it was a vague irritation instead of pain. But then Castiel stood up and leveraged himself on Dean’s thigh – where the demon had poured scalding water on him. He yelped like a cat that hat its tail stepped on. 

“Dean?” 

“She poured hot water on my legs,” Dean said, smiling sardonically. 

“God, Dean,” Castiel said. 

Dean raised his hips and unbuttoned his jeans, pulled them down and off. The skin of his thighs was mottled red and blistered, tender to the touch. 

“I think I have burn cream somewhere.” Castiel rummaged through a drawer, his ears pink, his eyes pointedly far away from Dean’s bare legs. 

Dean huffed out a laugh. “Look at us. Injuries all over the place.” 

Castiel found a crumpled tube of burn cream and handed it to Dean. He turned away, but Dean caught his hand and pulled him down. He sank onto the floor, his face still steadily focused elsewhere. 

“Dean—”

“Cas,” he said, matching his tone and adding a hint of a mocking bite. “Look at me.” 

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath before turning his head to face Dean. His eyes, that impossible winter sky color, were alive with the kind of fire that Dean had only heard about. He knelt there, his chest bumping against Dean’s knees, his hands splayed out on the floor. 

The cuts on his arms had crusted over with the beginnings of scabs, not yet dried but gelled. They weren’t actively bleeding. He reached one damaged arm out to rest his hand on Castiel’s face. He sighed and leaned into it, rubbing against Dean’s hand. It wasn’t right, Dean knew that, but he slid down anyway, met Castiel on the floor. Their legs tangled together and he pushed Castiel back. 

“Think about this, Dean,” Castiel said, voice shaking. 

“No.” 

“You have to. You can’t just – just – do whatever and then expect that nothing will snap back.” 

Dean saw, up close, the white and pink scars of Castiel’s life. Both cheeks, the thin skin of his lips, his eyebrows, his jaw – all bore tiny fissures that had been busted open and then healed over, shiny and pink. They looked like rivers on maps. Dean had been in precious few fights his whole life, but he knew that over the past day he had come close to catching up to these battle wounds. He reached out and touched one, a thick ropey line on the outskirts of Castiel’s eyebrow. 

“Let it be, Cas,” he said. “Let me have this moment. That’s all there is. She might be out there right now. If not her, someone else. If not a demon, then some crazy human. Are you afraid I’ll regret whatever I do?” 

“It’s been known to happen.” 

“And then take it out on you,” he said. The level, steely gaze was the only answer he needed. “I might not live to regret it.” 

“That’s—” 

“What? Unlikely? What the fuck does likely even mean anymore?” 

His parents hadn’t seen it coming. They thought they’d live to be eighty and see Sam and Dean graduate, see Sam go to some fancy college and Dean become a genius mechanic. They thought they had half a century of Christmases and Thanksgivings, of birthdays and grandkids and weddings and picnics. But they didn’t. They had the rug pulled out from under them, and Dean wondered – what did they regret not doing? Had they ever been to another country? Had they ever spent more than thirty dollars on a bottle of wine? Learned French? Watched every Stanley Kubrick movie back to back? Gone to a baseball game at Wrigley Field? Ultimately, what he wanted to know and would never find out, was what they had not done and regretted. It didn’t matter what you did and regretted, only what you didn’t do and regretted. 

Castiel reached up and stroked Dean’s arm, swept his thumb over it. Dean wondered if it was a promise or a warning. He gauged himself for something, some sign of fear or disgust, but nothing came. It felt weird to be in Castiel’s space, to be on top of him. Dean was used to Anna underneath him and oh God, he didn’t want to think of her right now or ever again. Castiel was sturdier than he looked, supporting Dean’s weight, daring to let his leg come up against Dean’s. 

His injuries throbbed, blood misdirected and crying out that the surface had been breached and something was wrong. That bitch had done a number on Dean’s face, and he hoped it looked roguish rather than broke-down. There was evidence to suggest that Castiel didn’t mind, and at that moment, that was all that really mattered. 

“Dean, I can’t do this,” Castiel said, closing his eyes. 

“Can’t do what?” 

“This—” He gestured helplessly around them. “Any of this.” 

Dean eased himself off Castiel, sat back on the cool, clean Linoleum and let his head rest against the wall, his knees drawn up. Castiel scrambled up and sat opposite him against the worn cabinet, their feet meeting in the narrow space between them, hardly wider than a pizza box. 

“Why not?” 

“You’re straight, for one thing,” Castiel pointed out. “And you’re not doing it because you want to. You’re doing it because terrible things have happened to you. You don’t want me.” 

“Don’t go telling me what I do and don’t want.” 

“Goddammit, Dean, you’ll just never get it. You _can_ never get it.” Castiel jumped up, first pacing the short length of the bathroom, then settling on the edge of the bath tub. “This is how it happens. Some straight guy gets the notion in his head that he’ll sleep with the neighborhood faggot—”

“Stop with that word!” Dean didn’t mean to shout, but it roared out of him nonetheless. 

“No. It’s _my_ word. I want it,” Castiel said, eyes blazing. He pointed a finger at Dean, a warning and an admonition. “So some straight guy fucks the neighborhood faggot, and then – you know, it’s not always ass-kickings. It’s – it’s – other things. The straight guy gets it out of his system, goes back to fucking girls. Or he goes somewhere else. He leaves.” 

Dean sniffed, wiped his nose with the back of his hand. 

“I’ve seen it happen, and I can’t let that happen to me.” 

“Did it ever occur to you that maybe I want it?” 

Castiel was down on the floor in an instant, pushing Dean down, not caring as his head bounced on the Linoleum. He gripped Dean’s t-shirt and dug his elbows into his sides. Power surged through him on the tails of anger, and Dean realized for the first time how capable Castiel really was. He could, in fact, hold his own if the situation warranted. 

“What do you want, Dean?” His voice was so cold, so low. “Do you want to suck my cock? You want it in your mouth? Or maybe you want me to suck yours? You can just sit back, close your eyes, and pretend it’s some girl. And afterward, you either get to treat me like your buddy or like some pathetic little whore, but you don’t treat me like an equal, that’s for sure.” 

“I wouldn’t—”

“Or maybe you want to fuck me. Is that it? You want to put your dick in my ass? That’s how it goes, you know. And there’s that old adage – _some guys don’t like to do that_ , but in my experience, quite a few do. And you know what? I love it. I fucking love it. You want that, Dean?” His eyes were narrowed, and if Dean looked close enough, he saw the aching fear there. 

“No,” Dean said. “I don’t know if I want any of that. I don’t know what any of that means. But I want—” He tipped his head up, got as much ground as he could, and kissed Castiel. It was sloppy; the angle dictated that he could only land a brief peck to Castiel’s jaw. 

Looking back, he didn’t know what he expected. Maybe he expected the clouds to part and the angels to sing. What he did _not_ expect was Castiel tightening his hand on his throat, pressing him hard against the cold ground. 

“Don’t. Do. That.” 

Dean spluttered and clawed at Castiel’s hand. Spots appeared at the sides of his vision. Then, Castiel loosened his grip and sat up. 

“I’m sorry, Dean. Get out of here.” 

Dean got, even though every last molecule in his body protested against it. He pulled his jeans on with force and barreled out of the bathroom, down the hall, and out the door. He didn’t stop to close it behind him, but he heard it slam and he knew Castiel had been there, watching him go. 

The next hurdle was going back to Sam and Bobby looking like he’d gone ten rounds with a meat tenderizer, which he kind of had, and lost with flying colors. He found some old fast food napkins in the glove box of the Impala and used them to clean up his face. There was a grease-stained flannel thrown in the backseat, which he put on and buttoned the cuffs, even though it was still eighty degrees and humid. His hands shook like an old drunk’s and his stomach was in four different kinds of knots. 

He had to do it sometime, before Bobby called the police, so he manned up and started the car, driving through town as fast as he thought he could get away with. 

When he got there, Sam was sitting at the top of the stairs. The door to the room was open. 

“Dean!” Sam called when he caught sight of him. He half-turned and called out to Bobby before launching himself down the stairs and pulling Dean in for the most brutal hug he had ever experienced. “Jesus fucking Christ, man. We thought—” He cleared his throat. Best not to articulate what they thought. 

Dean returned the hug as best he could, slapping Sam on the back. 

Then Sam stepped away and his face dropped. “What—”

Bobby was right there behind him, eyes wide and jaw slack. “Boy, what did you get yourself into?” 

“I – I got in a fight with Cas.” 

“Castiel did this to you?” Sam asked. “Castiel, built like a blade of prairie grass? That guy?” 

“If someone’s messing with you—” Bobby started. 

“No, no. It ain’t like that,” Dean said, waving his hands, trying to erase what he had drawn for them. 

“Then what’s it like?” Bobby asked, crossing his arms. His mouth was so thin that half his face was a solid carpet of beard. “Because what it looks like is that boy did a crazy number on you.” 

“Don’t worry, Bobby, I held my own,” he said, trying to laugh it off. “Look, it’s been a long day and I’m hungry enough to eat – well, whatever. Can we go back inside?” 

They tumbled up the stairs in a mass, Sam persisting with questions and Bobby silently herding them like a stoic blue heeler. 

Inside, there was chili with tater tots, which Dean tucked into with gusto. Funny what kidnapping and fighting with your only friend could do for an appetite. Sam and Bobby watched him eat, watched for signs of trauma or of him busting out crying. He wouldn’t freak out. He couldn’t. Freaking out over any of the freaky shit that had gone down like a Biblical plague in recent weeks was not an option in any way. It wasn’t for him, of course. If left to his own devices, Dean knew he’d rage and scream and then go catatonic. But he had the last two people in the world who cared about him there and looking like they expected him to take a long walk off a short pier – insofar as one could find a pier, short or otherwise, anywhere in landlocked Kansas – and he would not give in to that impulse. No way, no how. So he ate his tater tots even though they rested in his belly like gum. 

Bobby didn’t turn in until eleven thirty, even though both boys were still wide-awake. Sam pounced as soon as they were alone. 

“What really happened?”

“I told you, Sammy, now drop it.” Dean feigned concentration on the television, though he could not say whether the show was sport, entertainment, or news. 

“Why are you wearing one of Dad’s old work shirts?” 

Dean shrugged. “Found it in the Impala.”

“I know Castiel didn’t do this to you.” 

“Then who did? And why? Don’t jump down that rabbit hole, Sammy.” 

Sam dropped it, finally, and went to bed. Dean stayed out in the living area, the scratchy couch irritating him like an old scab. He was just dozing off when a shadow passed over the window, and he jolted upright. But then it came into focus and he saw the familiar and disorienting outline of himself. 

He slipped outside and down the stairs, his other self leading the way, neck craning back and forth. He limped a little and held his shoulder stiff. Down the stairs, even past the Dumpster, and the other guy stopped, leaning against a low cinder block wall. 

“Are you okay?” 

“I will be, once I get back to my own world. Need a little TLC, that’s all.” 

“From Cas?” 

He regarded Dean with narrowed eyes and pursed lips. Then he relaxed. “Yeah, from Cas. Anyway, I wanted to tell you, it’s done. I iced the bitch.” 

“Good. Thank you. I wish you’d’ve let me help.” 

He huffed out a dry laugh. “Hell no, kid. You need to put this in your rear view and don’t look back.” 

“Whatever. Look, are you going to be able to get back to where you need to go?” 

“Yeah, I got her stupid little spell book. Met up with those hunters you sent my way in Topeka, so I ain’t going it alone. But wanted to tell you first.” 

Dean nodded. 

“Don’t go looking for trouble, all right? I mean it. I got roped into this life, and it has been one shit sandwich after another, ad-fucking-nauseum.”

“Yeah, all right,” Dean said. 

He watched his counterpart limp off, out of the parking lot and onto the street. Dean went back up the stairs and looked out for him, waiting until a beat-up Subaru station wagon trundled up to the curb. The other man hollered a greeting and got in and that was it. As far as he would ever know, Dean was the only Dean Winchester in this reality.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean has a choice to make, so he makes it. He leaves Lawrence to go live with Bobby. But will he actually stay there?

And then it was time to decide: Would they attempt to be declared emancipated minors, effectively putting Dean in charge of Sam, or would they move to South Dakota with Bobby? Dean didn’t care either way, being that the only two people outside of Sam and Bobby that he wanted to talk to were not currently speaking to him. 

Sam, on the other hand, had actual friends and he kicked about the ersatz apartment, banging a mug down, then slamming a door, and then coming back to the living room with a _You know what – fine, whatever. Drag me off to South Dakota. What-fucking-ever._

Dean would rather die than admit it, but he desperately craved to get out of Lawrence and the last thing he wanted was to go back to school. Everyone would look at him with curiosity and sympathy. They’d say either he or Sam killed their parents. Ruby and Meg had no doubt spent their last weeks of summer vacation discussing this hot topic and coming up with an arsenal of theories and rumors to spread around school like the clap. 

The idea of holing up at Bobby’s, working on the miles of cars and retreating from the world, sounded as close to Heaven as Dean could get without actually biting the big one. But he understood where Sam was coming from. 

It was funny, but no one in all this ever suggested going to live with Mike. The man had been Dad’s business partner for the better part of two decades, but no one ever thought that letting John Winchester’s sons live with him would do a single thing to honor the departed’s memory. 

Dean finally convinced Sam, though he wasn’t sure how. Maybe he just wore his brother down. At any rate, he agreed that leaving would be okay and he would deal with it. He had one last hurrah with the nerd herd, which Dean dropped him off at. Ava’s mom hosted it, and Dean watched from the car as she hugged Sam and ushered him in with her arms around his waist. 

Dean peeled off into the night. He had unfinished business. 

The black Audi was out front of Castiel’s, and Dean couldn’t resist parking a hair too close behind it. Not to box Balthasar in – the space in front was empty – but as a pissing contest measure. 

Dean didn’t waste time dithering in the car. He shed the flannel – which he had been wearing over thin tank tops as the cuts on his arms turned to tight ropes of scabs – and relished the feel of air against his skin, despite the warmth and moisture of it. Sam and Bobby hadn’t questioned him about it, probably figuring it was some kind of mourning shroud. Practical reasons aside, they probably weren’t too far off the mark. 

He knocked on the door and there was the rustle of curtains, the hurried sound of voices. Then Balthasar answered the door, a juice glass filled with red wine in his hand. 

“Dean, I presume.” 

“I need to talk to Cas.” 

“Castiel is currently indisposed.” 

Dean craned his neck, saw Castiel sitting on the couch, arms crossed and pointedly not looking at the door. From inside the house, strains of music played, a shrill opera. The only opera Dean knew was The Who’s _Tommy_ , and he figured this wasn’t about some guy who played a mean pinball. If he had known anything about opera, he would have recognized the bright strains of _Tosca_. 

“I’m moving to South Dakota,” Dean called over Balthasar’s shoulder, and he really had to wonder about a middle-aged man who meddled in the affairs of teenagers. 

Castiel shifted on the couch, worried at his lip with his teeth. He crossed his legs, then uncrossed them. He had a juice glass filled with red wine, too, and he took a sip from it. 

“I might head down to the Piggly-Wiggly and see after some more refreshments,” Balthasar said. 

“You do that, fancy pants.” 

“Oh these old things? Last year’s worsted wool. Cheers,” he said, putting his glass down and pushing past Dean, out to his ridiculous little change purse of a car. 

Dean stood inside the door, closed it, leaned his back against it as if to trap Castiel in, keep him from running. 

“South Dakota, huh?” 

“Yep. Land of . . . something or other. Anyway, Bobby has his salvage yard up there.” 

“So you won’t be back at school?” 

“No. Gonna try for my GED.” 

Castiel nodded. 

Dean went and sat next to him. He took Castiel’s hand and kissed his scarred knuckles. Castiel pulled away so quick it made Dean’s teeth clack together. 

“Don’t even start that – _especially_ if you’re fucking off to South Dakota.” 

“I’m sorry. About that and about whatever else. I’ll miss you, Cas. I really will.” 

Castiel nodded. “Me too,” he whispered. 

“Stay safe, would you? Don’t hang out with that guy. Don’t hang out in any parks.”

“Don’t tell me what to do.” 

“You know, that day – I didn’t do it just because I was all freaked out. I did it because I wanted to.” 

Castiel took another sip of wine. “Maybe so.” 

“Definitely so,” Dean insisted. 

“Get out of here before I do something we both regret, okay?” Castiel’s voice cracked, and he cleared his throat. “I’ll look you up if, for some bizarre reason, I ever find myself in South Dakota.” 

Dean used whatever strength he had left to propel himself off the couch and out the door. He went to his car and sat in it, tried to keep his hands from shaking. Then there was the telltale thump-thump of bass and he skedaddled right as Balthasar screeched around the corner. He drove back to Ava’s and stretched out in the front seat of the car, staring at the shifting shadows on the ceiling, waiting for Sam. He didn’t care if he was out there until 10:45 – the latest that Bobby would allow them to stay out. 

He had dozed off, waking with a jerk when Sam rapped on the window. He righted himself and completely forgot about putting the flannel back on, his scabby arms showing. Anyway, Sam was like a zombie when he got in the car, so it didn’t matter. He stared straight ahead, occasionally swiping his fingers over his cheeks when tears spilled over. 

And maybe that was what set Dean off, too. First it was a sharp sting, and then a feeling like he had gotten water up his nose. Then he was holding onto Sam for dear life, his nose buried in Sam’s hair and his fingers digging into his brother’s shoulders. Sam sat there for a moment, stunned, and then he put his arms around Dean, too. They sat like that for a long while, sobbing on each other. 

“I said good-bye to Cas.” 

“I said good-bye to Jessica.” 

Dean almost said it wasn’t the same, but he didn’t have the energy for lying and self-delusion. 

They drove home and Bobby was aggressively scrubbing the counter by the sink when they got there. 

“Where the hell have you two idjits—” He wheeled around and stopped when he saw the red eyes and the ruffled hair. “Anyway, better get some shut-eye. We’re gonna have to make a trip to the old house tomorrow, to pack up your things.”  
***

The crime scene tape was gone and there was a remnant of one of those “Do not enter” stickers sealing the seam of the door. The front yard had been trampled down by news reporters and nosy neighbors, all of whom had moved on to some other tragedy. 

The door to his parents’ bedroom was open upstairs, and it had been scoured by one of those crime scene cleanup crews. The bed was gone, the wallpaper stripped, the carpet removed. All of it had been soaked in blood – his parents’ blood. Dean shut the door before Sammy got upstairs. 

Dean hadn’t realized how much work Bobby had been doing, boxing up the stuff in the house. He hadn’t been there to help, which Bobby did not begrudge him. The downstairs was a mess of boxes and of piles of “keep” and “donate” and “what the hell is this?” Upstairs, it was a different story. With his parents’ bedroom door closed, it looked normal. Quiet, like maybe Dad was at the shop and Mom was at one of her book clubs or gardening clubs or whatever. Dean sat on his bed and pretended that was the case. He pretended that he had gotten off work at the shop and gotten home before everyone else. He pretended that he was planning to take a nap and then go over to Castiel’s. 

Then there was the sound of Bobby’s boots and Sam’s steady clomping and that was the pin in his little imagination bubble. He pulled down the rest of his clothes and shoved them in a duffel bag with no thought to folding or rolling them up. He figured he would donate his desk to a thrift shop. After all, he didn’t plan on going to school anymore and anyway, it wasn’t like they didn’t have desks in South Dakota. 

He had a couple plastic storage bins of knickknacks from when he was a kid. His baby book, his old baseball mitt, his yearbooks. He used to make fun of Mom for keeping all that sentimental hoopla around, but now he was grateful. He didn’t have to look at it. He could load it in the back of the Impala, put it in Bobby’s attic, and then someday maybe ten years down the road when this was just a sore joint that flared up during pressure drops, rather than the gristly mass of pulp and bone that it was now, he could look at it. As it stood, if he saw a blond woman on the street or a man with deep-set eyes and big square hands, he nearly went blind with grief. Never mind looking at all the tokens and artifacts and actual pictures that were the only remaining evidence that the Winchesters had been a nuclear family. 

Detectives had been to the motel to give them progress updates. There had been a rash of smash-and-grabs in nearby towns, they said, and this looked to be one of them. The detectives were nice and earnest and simple people. They, nor anyone else, would have understood the truth that was Dean’s – and Dean’s alone – to bear. He did not openly deride the idea that a couple of itinerant tweakers could have graduated from low-level home invasions to extravagant slaughter. But what the hell could he do? Start telling everyone that demons did it, and he’d find himself with a one-way ticket to the loony bin. 

He wondered where Jodie and Gertrude were, if they were back in Oregon or if they had picked up a case somewhere else. 

Bobby appeared in the doorway of Dean’s room, rapped on the frame. “How’s it coming in here?”

“Okay, I guess.”

“Well, I’m fixing to go pick up the trailer so’s we can haul some of the furniture. I figure you boys will want to keep your beds. Sam wants his desk.” 

“What about Dad’s guns?” 

“You want to keep them? I know a buyer in town who’d take them.” 

“Just the shotgun and the .45. For sentimental value.” 

Bobby nodded. “You sure you don’t want the rifle? What about the .22?”

Dean shook his head. 

All that he really wanted to take would fit into his duffel and the two plastic storage bins. He heaped the rest into a box and shoved it in the “donate” pile. He called in Sam to help him with the desk, and they brought it downstairs. Sam didn’t understand that Dean didn’t want to keep it, and Dean couldn’t explain. He just shrugged and said he didn’t want it. 

It took them the rest of that afternoon and part of the next morning to clear out the house. When all was said and done, the appliances had been donated to some church and the housewares were donated somewhere else. The place was empty, the only evidence of occupancy being the faded rectangles where the picture frames used to rest and the worn spots on the carpet. Everything Dean and Sam wanted to take was piled into a tiny trailer. 

This had been his defining summer, and Dean wished to God that he could have taken it all back. He wished he had never hoped for anything interesting to happen to him. All he wanted was to move on, but in the thick of it, moving on seemed as unlikely as going back to the way things were. 

When it was time to leave, they all stood in the foyer thinking of all the holidays and birthdays, the fights and reconciliations, the normal days that were simply pleasant. There was an air of ceremony, like they ought to have said something to mark the occasion, but there was nothing that could be said. Bobby led them out. He was going to drive the Nova and Dean would drive the Impala. They had sold the Dart. There would be no shortage of cars for Sam when the time came. 

They hit the road and he turned up the stereo, only looking back once as he pulled away from the house where he had grown up and where his parents had been murdered.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean gets itchy feet. He finds a poltergeist in Arkansas and goes hunting -- but he has one stop to make first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is, the end! Thanks so much to everyone who read it.

Epilogue

He tried to settle down at Bobby’s. It went well for a few months. He fixed cars up and pulled salvage parts out of ones that were too trashed to be repaired. Bobby didn’t press him to do any more than that, instead letting him have a couple beers with him in the evenings. They talked about a lot of things, but never Mom and Dad. 

Bobby’s house was as safe a haven as Dean would ever find, now that he knew how awful the world could actually be. He lost himself among the cars and scrap heaps. Sometimes the only sound he heard for hours was the sound of his boots crunching on gravel and the persistent clang of tools. 

Sam went to high school in Sioux Falls and Dean drove him to and from, not once wishing he were there himself. He got his GED on the first try and never looked back, not even contemplating a stab at community college. Meanwhile, Sam was in all honors classes, plus soccer, and he already had friends. 

It wasn’t quite how Dean envisioned starting his adult life, but there it was. He turned eighteen to little fanfare, just dinner with Bobby and Sam. Sam baked him a pie, which tasted good and only had burnt edges on one tiny side of the crust. They didn’t talk about who should be there and was not. 

He thought about his parents every day. He thought about what his life would be like if they were still alive. He’d be plowing through his senior year, and Dad would be ready to have him work full-time at the shop. Mom would be fussing over Sam constantly. 

And he thought about Castiel most days, too. A few times, he even picked up the phone at Bobby’s, his finger hovering over the keypad. That was as far as he got, chickening out after dialing the area code. He hoped to God the boy had found some peace, maybe found a real boyfriend. He imagined Castiel curled up with some college dude, reading or watching weird movies. And if his chest tightened to think of it, well, he told himself that was just him wanting the best for his friend. He told himself that, but he never quite got around to believing it. 

Throughout the rest of the winter, Dean spent cold days in the garage, tinkering and scrubbing and polishing. He rebuilt the engine for the Impala, just because, and it sang like God’s own choir when he was done. He watched Sam cream half the county in a forensics match, and even though it was mind-numbingly boring, the way Sam tried to look humble even as he was winning was charming. 

Then, he glanced at the paper one day and saw an article about some strange disappearances down in Arkansas. Three kids had gone into an abandoned mansion in some postage stamp of a town and they hadn’t been seen since. The place was purported to be one of the most haunted places in the state. 

Dean knew what he needed to do and he packed a bag, telling Bobby and Sam that he was going to a salvage auction. Bobby gave him suspicious eyes, but grunted something to the effect that Dean was an adult now – in age, if not in sense. Sam didn’t believe him for one second and cornered him as he threw his bag in the back of the Impala. 

“Where are you really going?” 

“Told you, salvage auction.” 

“You need Dad’s old shotgun for that?” Sam asked, nodding toward the trunk. 

A cold wind whipped around them, the wet February gloom. Dean turned up his collar and squared off against Sam, leveled an ironclad gaze at him. 

“I’ll be back, Sammy. That’s all you need to know.” 

He drove all day and most of the night, stopped for some shut-eye at a dilapidated roadside fleabag. He drank acidic coffee and ate greasy eggs. No one asked his name, no one knew who he was, no one crushed him with their grief and sadness and bewilderment at why some were taken and others left behind. It was the most desolate, raw kind of bliss, clean and pure. 

Before going to Arkansas, he stopped in Lawrence. He turned down this street and that, his muscles remembering where to go, when to turn the wheel. He cut the engine in front of Castiel’s house. It was nearly eleven and there was the ubiquitous light on in the living room. The house was the same shabby structure he remembered, maybe a little more weathered after the brutal winter. 

He went up the walk and knocked on the door, his heart pounding in his chest, half expecting someone other than Castiel to answer the door. But then it opened and there he was. His hair was cut and meticulously tousled; his jeans were tight and he wore a soft blue hoodie. It was unzipped and Dean saw finger-shaped bruises on the front of his neck. 

Castiel considered him a moment, cocked his head and let his eyes take in the messy hair, the worn leather jacket he’d found in his dad’s things, the scuffed work boots. Without a word, he started to close the door, but Dean darted his arm out. He pushed back and Castiel let go in surprise. 

“What? No kiss hello?” Dean asked. 

Castiel pursed his lips. “No call, no letter. Nothing. Not even a fucking post card. And you show up, what? Wanting to hang out?” 

“Can I at least come inside a minute? It’s fucking freezing out here.” 

Castiel stood back and let him inside, shut the door but kept his hand on the doorknob, ready to toss Dean out on his ass if he didn’t like what he had to say. It was completely fair. 

“I thought about you almost every day,” Dean blurted out. He hadn’t intended to say it, but there it was, and he added in a whisper, “Almost as much as I thought about my parents.” 

Castiel softened, the scowl disappearing from his face. 

“You didn’t call me either. I was easy enough to find.” 

“Why now?” 

“I’m going to go hunt a poltergeist in Arkansas. You want to come with me?” 

Castiel leaned against the door and laughed, his hand splayed across his skinny chest. “You’re going to do what to a what? And you need me why?” 

“You heard me. I need you because – because – I don’t know. I just do, okay? You’d be good at it. I saw all the stuff you put together to try and find your dad.” 

Castiel shifted his feet and cleared his throat. “All of which was stupid bullshit.” 

“It wasn’t! It was good. Come on. Also – also it’s likely I’ll get my ass kicked, and I’ll need someone to patch me up.” He smiled weakly. “Remember?” 

“Of course I remember.” Castiel crossed his arms. “How do I know you won’t just ditch me again?” 

“I didn’t ditch you, but if that’s what you think happened, so be it. I guess you’ll just have to trust me.” He leaned against the wall, smiling a trifle smugly, knowing full well that using a word like _trust_ to Castiel was both a challenge and a taunt. “Come on, Cas. It looks like you could use a – a change of scenery.” He gestured to Castiel’s neck, and the other boy hastened to zip his hoodie up and put his hand to his throat, as if Dean could un-see what he already saw. 

“Shut up. You don’t get to waltz in here after six goddamn months and tell me about myself.” 

“What happened, Cas?” 

“Nothing you need to worry about. Look, you better get a move on. My mom’s shift at the Gas’n’Sip ends at midnight, and she won’t take kindly to a boy being in the house. Especially not one as cute as you.” 

“Your mom is back?” he asked, pointedly ignoring the fact that Castiel had just called him cute. 

“For what it’s worth.” 

“She didn’t do that to you, did she?” 

“No, it was – not anyone you’d know.”

“Come with me, Cas. Please? I need—” 

“What’d I tell you about that look, Dean?” 

He swooped close to Castiel, grabbed him by the arm. “It’s not just about research and patching me up if I get clobbered. I need _you_ , okay? I promise that if there is life in my body, I will not leave you stranded anywhere.” 

Castiel’s eyes were wet and electric, dangerous, his jaw set. “You can’t come in here with sweeping gestures and expect me to drop everything.” 

“What are you dropping? Cas, I think you keep putting yourself in danger because you think your life doesn’t mean anything. You let some guy nearly – nearly choke you to death. Well, here’s your chance. Here’s a way for your life to mean something.” 

“I don’t want to run off with you and be your lame gay sidekick.” 

“You wouldn’t be my sidekick. And you aren’t lame. Although, you are definitely gay.”

“Dean, you don’t understand—”

“I understand,” Dean whispered. “I know what it means to you. And what if – what if it meant the same thing to me?” 

“Goddammit, Dean—”

“I can’t explain it – hell, I don’t even want to try. But all I know is – this thing here – it’s a whole other ball of wax.” His voice was so quiet, barely more than a sigh, but Castiel looked as shocked as if Dean had yelled. 

And then Castiel was leaning forward, kissing him softly on the lips. It was tentative, experimental, and he tensed up, waiting for Dean to come to his senses and slug him. It didn’t happen though, and much to Dean’s surprise, he found himself kissing back. In fact, he found himself pulling Castiel close and letting one hand come up to worry under the hem of his hoodie, his rough fingers alighting on soft skin. 

“Help me pack,” Castiel whispered when they came up for air. 

He had never been in Castiel’s bedroom, and it sort of surprised him. The bed was made, the blanket on top worn but clean. There were shelves upon shelves of books, neatly wedged side-by-side and free of dust. His closet door was open, and his collection of ratty flannel shirts and jeans hung there, one side devoted to shirts and the other to jeans. 

There was a Bible on the nightstand, its leather cover tattered at the edges. The edges of the pages had once been gold but were now faded. A section about a third of the way in was particularly worn. If Dean had to guess, he’d say it was the Psalms. Castiel caught Dean looking at it and picked it up. 

“It was my grandmother’s,” he said by way of explanation.

“Good. Bring it with you.” 

They shoveled most of Castiel’s belongings into a duffel bag and his backpack. He ran his hand along the spines of the books on the shelf, considering them all with a frown. Dean glanced at the alarm clock on the nightstand – eleven forty-five. 

He cleared his throat. “Ah, Cas, time’s of the essence here. Grab a box or something if you can’t decide now.” 

“They’re not important,” Castiel said. “It’s not like I have a one-of-a-kind collection.” 

“If they’re important to you, they’re important,” he said. 

Castiel nodded, pulled an old milk crate down from a shelf in his closet. He stacked as many books as he could in there and Dean hauled it out to the car. He came back in and Castiel was in the kitchen, raiding a coffee can on the counter. There was a crumpled wad of bills there, and he flattened them out, stacked them, and put them in his wallet. Part of Dean balked at the thought of outright theft, but he figured it was asshole tax after all the bullshit Castiel’s mom put him through. 

Castiel grabbed his stuff and headed out the door, Dean at his heels. Then, in the front walk, he stopped abruptly, Dean colliding into him. He stared long and hard at the ramshackle house. 

“I left last winter, you know? But I always knew I’d be back. Even if I found him, I knew I’d be back. But this time, I don’t think I will be.” 

Dean squeezed his shoulder. “Come on, man.”   
***

Dean managed to drive another three hours before the lines on the road started doing the watoosi, at which point they pulled off the road and into the parking lot of a motel. Dean secured the room, grateful that they had been given one at the far end – away from any potential prying eyes. 

They grabbed their backpacks and went inside, standing in between the beds. It hit Dean then what he had signed up for, and the thought of a poltergeist in Arkansas was the least of his worries. Castiel shifted on his feet and stared down at the floor, cleared his throat a couple too many times. 

Castiel held out his hand, and Dean took it. He pulled him close and Dean struggled involuntarily for a moment, trying to wiggle out of Castiel’s grasp. But when he asked himself why and came up with nothing, he let himself fall into it. He circled his arms around Castiel. 

“I’m pretty beat,” he said. “And I need a shower.” 

“I second that,” Castiel said. 

Dean pulled back and socked him on the arm. “Shut up,” he said by way of witty retort. 

Castiel laughed and flopped down on one of the beds. There were two in the room, but it was as unspoken as it was clear that only one would be used that night. Castiel turned on the TV and Dean grabbed bedclothes and shower stuff. 

The water pressure was good, though the water itself gave off a smell like overcooked pasta and pennies. He let himself linger there more than he might have normally, the hot spray burning through him. He was lobster pink when he got out of the shower, toweling off, putting on his pajamas. He hoped Castiel didn’t view that as a slight. But he couldn’t honestly expect Dean to come out of the bathroom naked, could he? Well, Dean would have to find out. 

He stepped out of the bathroom and Castiel was curled up in one of the beds. He had taken up the whole middle part, and Dean knew for sure that was a test. The TV was off and Castiel was staring into space. The only light was the one Dean left on in the bathroom, the glow of it cold and white. Dean went up to the bed and gestured for Castiel to move over. 

“I don’t think sleeping on top of you would be all that relaxing,” he said. 

Castiel smiled up at him and scooted over. The now-vacant spot on the bed taunted him and invited him in equal measure. He took a deep breath and climbed in the bed; it was already warm and the sheets were ruffled, instead of too tight at the bottom. Castiel reached out and put his hand on Dean’s face. 

Then Dean realized Castiel was wearing pajama bottoms but no shirt, and it panicked him briefly before he got a hold on himself. Castiel noticed, the little bastard, and smirked at him. His skin was pale and mostly smooth, with a few pink outlines of scars. The bruises on his neck stood out and Dean couldn’t stop himself as he reached out and touched them. Castiel made to pull back, but Dean shushed him. 

“It’s okay, Cas.” He traced the outer edge, which might have been in the elliptical shape of a finger. “You ever gonna tell me what happened?” 

It was three in the morning and he had been up since nine, driving. But the shower and the adrenaline of something so new and out of bounds recharged him. 

Castiel cleared his throat. “It was some guy at the park. Some . . . random guy. In his twenties, maybe. Kind of a jock type, I guess. Anyway, we were – whatever – hooking up. And he just started choking me. It was funny, almost. I mean, not funny. It was scary as hell, but like, there’s this unspoken rule there that if you see anything – um – happening, you don’t acknowledge it. Except this guy was like almost choking me, so this other guy pulled him off.” 

“I don’t want you to feel like you have to go to those places anymore.” 

“Did it ever occur to you that I like it there? I met some okay people there. Balthasar. A couple others.” 

“Did you like it? If you can tell me that and make me believe it, I won’t bring it up again.” 

Castiel stared back at him, and even in the dim, lifeless light from the bathroom, his eyes showed hopelessly blue. “No, I didn’t like it. As soon as I met someone I liked, they’d be gone or they would hook up with someone else.”

Dean kissed his forehead. “I gotta say, that worked out in my favor.” 

Castiel tried to hide his smile but did a terrible job. “So cheesy.” 

“Yep. Now, we have a poltergeist to hunt, so we best get some sleep.”

They fell asleep tangled together and it didn’t scare Dean like he thought it might. In fact, he enjoyed it. He enjoyed the way Castiel shifted in his sleep and bunny-kicked him a little, the way his face lost all those hard edges of cynicism that he had when he was awake. Dean pulled him close and didn’t once worry that he might crush him.


End file.
